TONY Rickardsson and Leigh Adams pulled off one of the great 5-1s of all-time in Poole's history as they came back from the dead to beat Peterborough last night.

The Meridian Lifts Pirates, most people's favourites to win the Elite League title before the season began, looked as though they were going to slip to their second home defeat of the campaign.

Especially so when Panthers' spearhead Ryan Sullivan was leading coming off the second bend after the start of the final race.

Peterborough had gone into the last-heat decider 43-41 ahead after ex-Pirates Hans Andersen and Chris Harris had inflicted a 5-1 over Bjarne Pedersen and David Ruud in heat 14.

That had turned an unconvincing 40-38 Pirates advantage into a two-point deficit and secured Peterborough, who had won the home meeting 47-43, the bonus point.

With Sullivan now out in front of Rickardsson and Adams, it looked as though the Panthers were going to walk away with all three points on offer.

That would have been a major disaster for Poole in sporting terms and would have knocked the whole team's confidence.

But Rickardsson and Adams pulled off something special to wake up the Pirates fans whose slumbering silence after heat 14 had signalled they felt the meeting had already slipped away.

First Rickardsson came scorching round the outside of the pits bend to pull up level with Sullivan as they vied for the lead.

The Swede just managed to win the race for first place down the back straight.

Behind them, Adams had already dived inside Andersen on the first and second turn after being the slowest out from the tapes.

Adams tried everything along the inside line to try and find a way past Sullivan for the rest of the opening three laps.

But he couldn't make up ground and then switched to the outside line just before he entered the final circuit.

That did the trick as he immediately made ground on Sullivan down the back straight before lining up his bike for the final run-in a precious few points of a second earlier than his compatriot as they hit the middle of the third and fourth bends.

Then it was simply a race for the line between the two for the vital second spot as Rickardsson already had the race win in the bag and Andersen was trailed off in last place.

If Sullivan won the race for second, Peterborough would have forced a 45-45 draw.

But Adams just managed to spurt past his fellow Australian on the run-in and pipped his rival to the finish line by less than a wheel's length.

The Poole Stadium crowd erupted in euphoria as Rickardsson and Adams received their deserved standing ovation from the Pirates faithful.

They then showed what the win meant to the team as the Swede and Australian celebrated in style by doing wheelies down the finish straight on their second victory circuit.

One punter in the crowd even muttered that the race had been fixed, probably because Adams' last-bend passing manouevre had to been seen to be believed.

But I can assure him that in no way was the race, or the outcome of the meeting, decided beforehand.

I can say that with 100-per-cent certainty because I witnessed how dejected Sullivan was in the riders' changing room area afterwards.

Normally a very open, personable individual, he was speechless, absolutely devastated to have been passed by both Rickardsson and Adams.

You could clearly see he was livid with himself. And you could clearly see how it had hurt Sullivan to see Peterborough lose out on a possible victory or draw.

In the end, Pirates survived. But in truth they were unconvincing winners. The two points, though, keep them in the chase for second place behind league leaders Coventry.

For that they have to thank the magnificent last-heat effort of Rickardsson and Adams.

HEAT DETAILS Pirates: 1 Leigh Adams (2-3-3-1*-2*) 11+2, 2 Krzysztof Kasprzak (0-1-2-1) 4, 3 Lukas Dryml (0-3-1*-3) 7+1, 4 Bjarne Pedersen (1-0-2-1) 4, 5 Tony Rickardsson (3-3-3-2-3) 14, 6 David Ruud (3-0-0-0) 3, 7 Andre Compton (2*-1-ret-0) 3+1. Team manager: Neil Middleditch. Peterborough: 1 Ryan Sullivan (3-2-2-3-1) 11, 2 Shane Parker (1-1*-2-1-1*) 6+2, 3 Rider replacement for Piotr Protasiewicz (injured), 4 Hans Andersen (2*-1*-2-1*-3-0) 9+3, 5 Gary Havelock (3-0-2-3-0) 8, 6 Kenneth Bjerre (1-0-0) 1, 7 Chris Harris (0-2-3-0-2-2*) 9+1. Team manager: Jim Lynch. Referee: Barry Richardson. Ht 1: Sullivan, Adams, Parker, Kasprzak, 59.38 (2-4). Ht 2: Ruud, Compton, Bjerre, Harris, 60.71 (7-5). Ht 3: Havelock, Andersen, Pedersen, Dryml, 60.77 (8-10). Ht 4: Rickardsson, Harris, Compton, Havelock, 59.10 (12-12). Ht 5: Dryml, Sullivan, Parker, Pedersen, 59.88 (15-15). Ht 6: Adams, Havelock, Kasprzak, Bjerre, 59.25 (19-17). Ht 7: Rickardsson, Parker, Andersen, Ruud, 59.07 (22-20). Ht 8: Harris, Kasprzak, Parker, Compton (retired), 59.87 (24-24). Ht 9: Havelock, Pedersen, Dryml, Bjerre, 60.18 (27-27). Ht 10: Adams, Andersen, Kasprzak, Harris, 59.44 (31-29). Ht 11: (re-run) Rickardsson, Sullivan, Parker, Ruud, 59.05 (34-32). Ht 12: Dryml, Harris, Andersen, Compton, 60.00 (37-35). Ht 13: Sullivan, Rickardsson, Adams, Havelock, 59.37 (40-38). Ht 14: Andersen, Harris, Pedersen, Ruud, 60.90 (41-43). Ht 15: Rickardsson, Adams, Sullivan, Andersen, 59.69 (46-44).