Eatbourne Eagles began their Craven Shield bid with a 52-38 defeat at Poole last night.

The new Elite League champions were always chasing a lost cause after the Pirates scored a 5-1 in the opening heat.

Paul Hurry was the Sussex team's best rider, scoring a paid 13 points from six rides and figuring in all three races in which Eagles gained a heat advantage.

He teamed up with David Norris for a 4-2 in heat three and then partnered Joe Screen and Petri Kokko to maximum 5-1 wins in heats six and 14.

Screen and Kokko were also paid for double-figure returns, but with Norris, Dean Barker and guest Shane Parker all failing to make much impact there was little Eagles could do to stop the home side scoring a comfortable victory.

New world champion Mark Loram led the Poole blitz with a 15-point maxi-mum, while Scott Nicholls, who helped Eagles clinch the league title last week-end, weighed in with a paid 14 return.

Eastbourne trailed by eight points after five heats, and although they were only four points behind after eight races two back-to-back 5-1's in the next two heats ended the contest.

Poole: Mark Loram 15, Scott Nicholls 12, Lars Gunnestad 8, Gary Havelock 7, Grzegorz Wala-szek 5, Alun Rossiter 3, Emil Lindqvist 2.

Eastbourne: Paul Hurry 12, Petri Kokko 10, Joe Screen 9, David Norris 3, Shane Parker 3, Dean Barker 1, Chris Neath 0.