ANDRE Compton produced the best ride of his short career with Pirates as they hit Ipswich and Coventry hard with three late 5-1s to forge into a welcome 12-point lead in the Craven Shield Final last night.

With two-thirds of the first leg gone at Wimborne Road, Poole Meridian Lifts had struggled to overpower their rivals on their own track and were only two points ahead of Ipswich and four in front of Coventry.

But maximum heat advantages in three of the last six heats gave Pirates a crucial 12-point cushion to take into the second leg at Ipswich tonight (7.30pm).

The third and final leg is at Coventry on Saturday.

Bjarne Pedersen and Magnus Zetterstrom, guesting for injured Pirates captain Gary Havelock, produced fireworks in heat 13 to grab the first of those three late 5-1s.

The Dane outgated Ips-wich's Poole track specialist Craig Boyce to take the lead and was joined out in front on the outside of the second bend by Zorro, as Zetter-strom is known.

Zorro's bike, however, lifted violently as he went round the fourth bend and Boyce zipped past on the inside back into second spot. Zetterstrom hit back hard to dive under Boyce on the second bend of the third lap and join up again with Pedersen for a maximum.

If Zorro's terrific effort had got the home fans in a 2,000 crowd on their feet roaring in gratitude, Comp-ton then added to their celebrations.

The Newcastle rider, who joined Poole on loan in late August while still doubling up with his Premier League outfit, sparkled in heat 15.

Compton was taking his third ride as a reserve change for Henka Gustaf-sson, who had withdrawn from the meeting after his first race through a recurrence of his injured knee.

The Premier Leaguer, off gate two, jumped out from the tapes in front of Coven-try pair Joe Screen and Stuart Robson to go on and pull off a fabulous heat win.

Compton rode superbly to peg Screen behind him for the first two laps before Peter Karlsson, guesting for Poole in place of unavailable Tony Rickardsson, produced a last-to-second burst.

Karlsson dived under Screen into second place on the first and second bends of the last lap to join Compton on a 5-1 which propelled Pirates six points ahead of Ipswich and eight ahead of Coventry at that stage.

Poole kept the heat on in race 16 when Bjarne Peder-sen and Zetterstrom maintained the fireworks to get another 5-1, this time over the Ipswich duo of Jarek Hampel and Chris Slabon.

That finally put some real distance between themselves and the Witches and Bees.

Pedersen led from the gate, while Zorro swept outside both Ipswich men on the second bend, to join his team-mate out in front on a maximum.

Hans Andersen, who had ridden superbly to be Poole's Daily Echo rider-of-the-night, was beaten for the only time by Lee Richard-son, Coventry's 12-point man, in the final heat.

By then, however, Pirates had done enough to take a healthy lead to Ipswich and have given themselves a fair chance of hanging on to that advantage over two more legs to retain the trophy they won last year.

It is unlikely Gustafsson will be taking any further part in the final, though.

Poole's gamble with using the Swede backfired as he struggled to cope with a grippier track than usual at Wimborne Road.

Gustafsson had sustained a knee injury in a fall at Poole last week and Pirates co-promoter Mike Golding said: "Although Henka rode in Poland over the weekend he was obviously not fully fit last night.

"So Andre will go into the main team at Ipswich and we will bring Dave Watt in as reserve for us.

"As soon as Henka saw that the track was a bit grippy, he himself said he didn't think he could handle it. And that's the way it turned out in his first race.

"The track was just a bit grippier than normal because of the wet weather. The track staff hadn't been able to do as much on it as they would have wanted.

"It was just pulling too much on his ligaments and knee so Andre stepped in and done a very good job for us."

Compton was able to take Gustafsson's remaining rides because of a rule change since last year's Craven Shield Final.

Then, reserves could only be called up to replace a rider before a meeting had started. That rule has been changed so that a reserve can take the place of a rider who pulls out injured during the course of a meeting.

The line-ups for the second leg of the final at Ipswich tonight are:

Pirates: 1 Peter Karlsson (guest for unavailable Tony Rickardsson), 2 Andre Compton, 3 Adam Skornicki (guesting for injured Gary Havelock, 4 Bjarne Pedersen, 5 Hans Andersen, 6 Lars Gunnestad. Reserve: Dave Watt.

Ipswich: 1 Jarek Hampel, 2 Chris Slabon, 3 Craig Boyce, 4 Danny Bird, 5 Scott Nicholls, 6 Joonas Kylmakorpi. Reserve: Kim Jansson.

Coventry: 1 Billy Hamill, 2 Ryan Fisher, 3 Lee Richardson, 4 Tomas Topinka, 5 Joe Screen (guesting for unavailable Andrea Jonsson), 6 Stuart Robson. Reserve: tba.

HEAT DETAILS Pirates: 1 (guest) Peter Karlsson (3-3-3-2*) 11+1, 2 Henka Gustafsson (0) 0, 3 (guest) Magnus Zetterstrom (1*-0-2*-2*) 5+3, 4 Bjarne Pedersen (2-1-3-3) 9, 5 Hans Andersen (3-3-3-2) 11, 6 Lars Gunnestad (0-2*-1-1*) 4+1. Reserve: Andre Compton (1-0-3) 4. Team manager: Neil Middleditch. Ipswich: 1 Jarek Hampel 2-1-exc 2 mins-1) 4, 2 Chris Slabon (1*-3-3-ret) 7+1, 3 Craig Boyce (2-ret-1) 3, 4 Danny Bird (1*-1-0-3) 5+1, 5 Scott Nicholls (2-2-2-1*) 7+1, 6 Joonas Kylmakorpi (0-1*-2) 3+1. Reserve: Kim Jansson (1*-2*-0) 3+2. Team manager: Mike Smillie. Coventry: 1 Billy Hamill (3-2-exc unfair riding-1*) 6+1, 2 Ryan Fisher (0-0-1-2) 3, 3 Lee Richardson (3-3-3-3) 12, 4 Tomas Topinka (0-2*-0-0) 2+2, 5 (guest) Joe Screen (2-3-2-1) 8, 6 Stuart Robson (ret-1-fell exc-0) 1. Reserve: Andrew Appleton (dnr). Team manager: Colin Pratt. Referee: Frank Ebdon. Ht 1: Karlsson, Hampel, Slabon, Gustafsson, 57.99 (Poole 3-Ipswich 3-Coventy 0). Ht 2: Richardson, Boyce, Bird, Topinka, 59.54 (3-6-3). Ht 3: Hamill, Pedersen, Zetterstrom, Fisher, 59.49 (6-6-6). Ht 4: Andersen, Nicholls, Jansson, Gunnestad, 58.91 (9-9-6). Ht 5: Slabon, Screen, Hampel, Robson (fell remounted, retired), 60.19 (9-13-8). Ht 6: Karlsson, Hamill, Compton, Fisher, 59.21 (13-13-10). Ht 7: Andersen, Gunnestad, Bird, Boyce (retired), 59.97 (18-14-10). Ht 8: Screen, Nicholls, Robson, Kylmakorpi, 60.26 (18-16-14). Ht 9: Richardson, Topinka, Pedersen, Zetterstrom, 59.70 (19-16-19). Ht 10: Karlsson, Nicholls, Kylmakorpi, Compton, 59.90 (22-19-19). Ht 11: (re-run) Slabon, Jansson, Fisher, Hamill (excluded unfair riding), Hampel (excluded two minutes), 60.99 (22-24-20). Ht 12: (re-run) Andersen, Screen, Gunnestad, Robson (fell excluded), 60.78 (26-24-22). Ht 13: Pedersen, Zetterstrom, Boyce, Bird, 60.83 (31-25-22). Ht 14: Richardson, Kylmakorpi, Nicholls, Topinka, 59.97 (31-28-25). Ht 15: Compton, Karlsson, Screen, Robson, 61.14 (36-28-26). Ht 16: Pedersen, Zetterstrom, Hampel, Slabon (retired), 61.16 (41-29-26). Ht 17: Bird, Fisher, Hamill, Jansson, 61.64 (41-32-29). Ht 18: Richardson, Andersen, Gunnestad, Topinka, 61.01 (44-32-32).