SWINDON are desperate to keep up the play-off pressure when they face Lakeside at the Abbey tonight.

The Robins went down 56-35 at Poole last night and boss Alun Rossiter admits they cannot afford any home slip-ups.

Rossiter was disappointed with his team.

He said: “It doesn’t matter who it is, we should perform better than that and I’m disappointed by the performance from some of the boys.

“Troy did come to me before the meeting and said he wasn’t feeling well, so that could be part of it, but it wasn’t a good performance from everyone. Peter did his job, Dak did his job and Stevie did alright but the rest struggled a little.

“We seem to struggle down here and I don’t know why, I really don’t know why.

“We’ve got Lakeside next and it’s a home meeting which we need to win. We need to be taking maximum points from all of our home meetings now if we’re going to make the play-offs.”

Dakota North and Peter Kildemand got the Robins off to a perfect start with a 5-1 in the opening race, but although they impressed at times the visitors could not add to their points tally.

Danish racer Kildemand led Swindon superbly with a double figure return whilst North himself recorded two race wins.

Down at reserve, Steve Worrall put in a solid showing whilst Nick Morris returned a solid albeit unspectacular score.

However, Richie Worrall struggled as he stepped in for Simon Gustafsson in the third heat-leader role - and with skipper Troy Batchelor enduring a nightmare evening the Robins provided only four race winners.

The powerhouse Pirates eventually proved too strong on home soil, and Swindon were also hit by the withdrawal of Nathan Greaves following a heavy heat nine crash on what was a frustrating night.

POOLE 56: Maciej Janowski 14+1, Vaclav Milik 9+1, Darcy Ward 9+1, Kyle Newman 8+1, Josh Grajczonek 7+1, Przemyslaw Pawlicki 6+2, Benji Compton 3.

SWINDON 35: Peter Kildemand 12+1, Dakota North 9, Steve Worrall 7+1, Nick Morris 5+1, Richie Worrall 1, Troy Batchelor 1, Nathan Greaves 0.

Elite League points: Poole 3 Swindon 0