ALUN Rossiter believes it is Poole's Elite League title to lose.

The former Pirates captain saw his current charges slump to their worst defeat of the season - 58-35 at Wimborne Road on Wednesday.

Although Rossiter hasn't gone quite as far as conceding the championship to the Dorset club, he did admit Robins would have to come up with something special to end their 41-year wait for the top-flight crown.

He said last night: "Credit where credit is due. Poole were great, and we couldn't do anything about it. Someone has to dig deep to beat them. It's in their hands now.

"Everyone who comes up against them will need all their riders to be on top form if they are to have any chance of beating Poole.

"It looks like it's theirs to lose, but we haven't given up, otherwise there's no point. We just have to do some soul searching and sort ourselves out."

Following their fourth successive league defeat against Poole this term, third-placed Swindon now look odds-on to finish fourth behind Ipswich in the final table.

So with Castle Cover Pirates - chasing their first title since 2004 - almost assured of top spot, it looks like the two sides will meet again at Poole in the play-off semi.

Asked if he felt Swindon could still deny Pirates the title, Rosco added: "Not on Wednesday's performance.

"I really believed we could go to Poole and do something, but our gating was atrocious."

Ex-Pirate Troy Batchelor, now with Swindon, was one of three riders publicly warned by referee Chris Gay to stay still before tapes up during the meeting.

He was warned during three highly charged attempts to get heat four away after clearly moving in the first one.

Batchelor was too upset to talk to the Echo about that incident.

He did not want to speak about his controversial heat 13 exclusion for allegedly not staying still at the start following his previous warning - believed to be the first such disqualification at Wimborne Road for years.

Rosco, however, said: "I know the ref's thinking. He's felt Troy's moved in an earlier race and was warned, and he moved again.

"He's said if I don't penalise him, everyone will end up doing it, but it was a shocking decision to exclude him from heat 13.

"If Troy had come off bend two in fourth, he would've let the race go. But because he came up the inside and passed everyone, he excluded him even though he didn't gain an advantage from the start. It wouldn't have made a difference to the result.

"It was just a very poor decision. There is a rule which says to stay stationary but how many riders do you see keeping still?"