SWINDON Robins team manager Alun Rossiter said luck was not on their side as they fell to a narrow defeat at home to Poole Pirates yesterday.

Having fallen to a 30-point drubbing to Neil Middleditch’s outfit on the opening day of the season, just two points separated the sides yesterday.

Swindon started slowly and were eight points behind going into heat five but a run of three maximums put the hosts into the lead come heat eight.

The meeting ebbed and flowed from there and went down to the final heat, with Swindon needing a 4-2 success to secure a draw but Chris Holder, who is currently leading the Grand Prix Championship, had enough to take the win and hand the reigning champions their first victory on the road this campaign.

“I always knew it was going to be nip and tuck but, unfortunately, it went the wrong way,” said Rossiter.

“We had a bit of bad luck in the meeting. Jason (Doyle) came off and then Nick (Morris) got caught up there and those points worked out quite costly in the end.

“I am not sure what to put the slow start down to, it was just one of those things. Sometimes it goes for you and sometimes it doesn’t.

“When we came back it was just about keeping the momentum going and keep doing what we were doing but it kept drying out and the starts were very critical, there wasn’t much passing going on.

“Chris (Holder) made a good start in heat 15 and if one of ours had made the start, it would have been the same.

“There were no complaints, it was the same for both sides. With a dry, warmish day, the track is always going to get slick and it was not to the way we like it – not to the way our boys have started riding the track.

“There are no excuses, we were beaten fair and square.

“We’ll take heart from it. That was their first points on the road, we have 10 points in the bag and we will go there on Wednesday and try to get something.”

The Abbey saw a bumper crowd for the Bank Holiday meeting and Rossiter is urging them to stick with the team despite the result.

“It was a good response from the Swindon public today,” he added.

“Hopefully they are not too disappointed because I know what the Swindon public are like.

“They like to see people win and I hope they don’t go home and say they are not going to go back.

“They saw a cracking meeting. We started off slowly, came back into it then we dropped off and then we came strong again but just didn’t quite have enough left in the engine room.”