BATTLING Swindon went down to a 53-41 defeat at Elite League leaders Poole on Wednesday evening.

Although the Pirates were never seriously troubled on the night, the Robins did give a decent account of themselves and will have been encouraged to see the return to form of Scott Nicholls.

The Great Britain star top-scored with 14-points and Nicolai Klindt also chipped in with 8+1, but Poole were very solid all down the order and provided the vast majority of the race winners.

The Dorset men were 15-9 ahead after four races, but a 4-2 from Nicholls and Jesper B Monberg in Heat 5 did reduce the deficit momentarily.

But Poole restored their six-point lead in Heat 7 and a 5-1 in Heat 8 from Jason Doyle and Dennis Andersson gave them some further breathing space.

Klindt did have some success with tactical ride in heat 9 running a double-point second place behind Davey Watt, with Sergey Darkin third - but another maximum for the Pirates in Heat 10 increased their advantage to twelve-points (37-25).

Nicholls was the tactical ride choice in race 11 but he too had to settle for second place behind Watt. Doyle was third and so the race was shared as a 4-4.

A couple of home 4-2s then followed, but Jan Staechman’s men did restore some respectability to the final scoreline when skipper Simon Stead and Cory Gathercole took maximum points from Heat 14.

The two teams are straight back in action against each other tomorrow night for the return match at the Abbey Stadium (Thursday, 7.30pm).

POOLE 53: Davey Watt 13, Darcy Ward 11+1, Dennis Andersson 9+2, Jason Doyle 9, Rory Schlein 8+1, Renat Gafurov 2+1, Christian Hefenbrock 1

SWINDON 41: Scott Nicholls 14, Nikolai Klindt 8+1, Cory Gathercole 6+1, Simon Stead 5, Maciej Janowski 4, Sergey Darkin 2+2, Jesper B Monberg 2