PREVIEW: BELLE VUE v LEICESTER (ROWE MOTOR OIL PREM)

ROWE Motor Oil Premiership leaders Belle Vue host KO Cup winners Leicester in a top-of-the-table clash in Manchester tonight (Monday).

The Aces are five points clear at the top of the table, and their superb home record this season includes convincing wins over the Lions in both league and cup.

But the hosts will be without reserve Tate Zischke after a crash at Workington on Sunday left him with concussion, and he will be replaced by fellow Australian youngster Mitch McDiarmid as a guest.

The Lions race for the first time since last week’s KO Cup success against Ipswich, and they bring in Jonas Jeppesen to guest at reserve in place of the retired Kyle Howarth.

Belle Vue manager Mark Lemon said: “I think it would be fair to say the Lions haven’t shown their best form at the NSS this season, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be respecting them given the experience in their team.

“In Ryan Douglas they have a rider who has become an out-and-out No.1 in the Premiership this season and is someone who will certainly give the likes of Brady (Kurtz) and Doyley a challenge.

“We still have to visit Leicester again, so it’s important to score as many points as possible here, and in the bigger picture of the season it’s entirely possible that they will be a team we need to beat over two legs this autumn if we are to achieve our ultimate goal.”

Lions boss Stewart Dickson said: “Thursday night was brilliant, but now we turn our attentions back to the league and we have two big matches this week at Belle Vue and Sheffield.

“Belle Vue is a venue we’ve struggled at on more than one occasion in recent years so obviously we want to improve on that, and the first target will be to keep it much closer so we can think about the aggregate point, and then we’ll see what happens from there.”

BELLE VUE: Brady Kurtz, Norick Blodorn, Peter Kildemand, Zach Cook, Jason Doyle, Mitch McDiarmid, Will Cairns.
LEICESTER: Ryan Douglas, Drew Kemp, Nick Morris, Dan Thompson, Sam Masters, Jonas Jeppesen, Joe Thompson.

SCB Referee: Dave Watters

Live Streaming: https://www.bvtv.live/

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