In front of the Sky TV cameras the Bees paid their first visit to the home of Poole Pirates after their sensational league title victory last season.
Already depleted with the loss of Hans Anderson, Bees drafted in Scott Nicholls to replace him but were also without the services of Pawlicki who was injured yesterday so rider replacement was used to cover for him.
The Pirates set about their task of demonstrating why they are yet again one of the favourites for this years title with a resounding heat 1 maximum. The meeting then had a long delay after a violent first corner crash had poole's Christian Hefenbrock receiving lengthy treatment on the track before being carefully taken by ambulance to hospital for x-rays.
The Bees drew the re-run before the fast gating Pirates thumped home another maximum in heat 3.
The Bees battled hard to share the spoils of each of the next 3 heats but consecutive maximums in heats 8, 9 and 10 effectively sealed the match victory for Poole.
The Bees were trying hard throughout , with ryan Fisher almost doing a wall of death at one point along the air fence, but Poole's home track advantage told as they knew which lines to take to put the pressure on, and pass the Coventry riders when needed.
The meeting ended at heat 14 when Josh Auty was having a battle royal with Poole's Dennis Andersson for first place when coming out of the 2nd corner Auty picked up some drive that caused him to side-swipe Andersson sending both into the fence at the start of the straight. Thankfully both riders were missed by the 2 behind, and they both got up and walked away but the fence had been damaged by Auty and could not be repaired in time, leaving the final match score a convincing Poole 55 Coventry 31.
The Bees scorers were: