PREVIEW: EDINBURGH v LEICESTER (PO SF)

EDINBURGH kick off the Championship play-off semi-finals by hosting Leicester at Armadale tonight (Friday) – with the tie to be concluded tomorrow.

As league leaders, the Lions chose to face the Monarchs in the last four having won at the Scottish venue earlier in the season, but they are also aware of their opponents’ good record in the East Midlands.

Edinburgh were beaten by just five points when they visited Leicester in the summer, a result also consistent with others they have achieved in recent years.

Monarchs skipper Sam Masters said: “Whatever happened in the league doesn’t mean anything now. I wasn’t at Leicester, and Leicester were at Armadale early when a lot of our boys hadn’t had many laps here yet.

“I think it will be a different story now, over the two legs I think we pushed them pretty hard at their place as well, so we will be going for it, that’s for sure.”

Lions boss Stewart Dickson said: “They’re going to be looking to get as big a lead as they can, and for us the word is character – we need to go out there and show a bit of character over these next two meetings, otherwise our season is just going to fizzle out.

“I’m talking about us collectively in that, I’m not separating myself from the riders – it’s me and the seven riders. I’m not all of a sudden detaching myself because we had a bad meeting at Poole (on Wednesday).

“I’m in it with them, and we all need to club together on Friday and Saturday and get ourselves to the Grand Final of the play-offs.”

EDINBURGH: Sam Masters, Lasse Fredriksen, Kye Thomson, Paco Castagna, Josh Pickering, James Sarjeant, Jacob Hook.
LEICESTER: Nick Morris, Connor Mountain, Richie Worrall, Dan Thompson, Kyle Howarth, Joe Thompson, Max Clegg.

*LIVE STREAMING: https://watch.britishspeedway.co.uk