ROBINS boss Alun Rossiter has warned anyone writing off Poole’s Elite League chances following their dismal start to the season does so at their peril.

Neil Middleditch’s notoriously strong Pirates sit rock-bottom of the table after only securing two wins from eight meetings, and have also lost number one Darcy Ward to a shoulder injury which could keep him out for two months.

Promoter Matt Ford is in the process of trying to replace the talented young Australian and could also make changes lower down the order, and while Rossiter accepted making the play-offs is going to be hard, he insisted it is not beyond his former side.

“The one thing I have learned with Matt is that you never write him off. You write him off at your peril because he will be working hard,” he said.

“Matt just seems to have the knack of pulling something out of the bag. If I was dealing with him coming up to any play-offs or finals, I would certainly treat him with the utmost respect.

“Don’t underestimate Matt, they are not a spent force. But with the new regulations, I do believe Matt’s hands are tied.

“It (reaching the play-offs) is going to be a big ask unless Matt is going to be brutal and, unfortunately, drop one of his reserves. It is a big question and it comes back to loyalty.

“Sometimes, you have to show a little bit of loyalty with riders. From my point of view at Swindon, we hadn’t won the league for 45 years so we had to be a little bit brutal to do it.”

Rossiter believes the new grading system could make things hard for the Pirates to make changes, with young European riders often given too high a grading which effectively price them out the market.

“In fairness to Poole, the new grading system has stopped them,” he said.

“There is a perfect example with one of Poole’s riders from last year, Piotr Pawlicki. In a realistic world, he is a five-and-a-half-point rider, but he has been graded at six-and-a-half points.

“If we were being honest, there was a loophole. As an association, they have tried to tighten it up. That really makes it hard for Poole to make any big decisions.

“There are riders that will come but a lot of them are stranded on averages which are too high. That is the bottom line and that will restrict Poole.”