PREVIEW: LEICESTER v POOLE (PO SF)

LEICESTER and Poole race their Championship play-off semi-final to a finish at the Paul Chapman & Sons Arena tonight (Saturday, 7.30pm).

The Pirates take a slender six-point lead into the meeting after being unable to draw substantially clear of their opponents in Wednesday’s first leg, but they are also the only visiting side to win at the East Midlands venue this season.

Leicester again bring in Chris Harris to guest for the injured Hans Andersen, whilst Zach Cook continues for Poole as replacement for Stefan Nielsen.

Lions boss Stewart Dickson said: “We kept the tie alive with our performance on Wednesday, but we haven’t done anything else yet.

“To beat the best team in the league by more than six points is still going to take a big effort, and it’s not going to be easy. We’re going to need a full seven-man performance.

“I felt Zach Cook was their match-winner in the first leg, he really took care of our lower end, but I’d like to think our lower end can bounce back at home.”

Poole co-promoter Dan Ford said: “We can’t afford to go there and just defend the six-point advantage we hold as that could be wiped out fairly quickly. We must treat this as a one-off really.

“It is true that we need to score 43 points to qualify for the Grand Final, but to get that total we need to be winning races. There is not a great deal of room for any slip-ups.

“Everyone knows how tough it will be, but we do have a very determined bunch of lads, just as the Leicester side have as well. So, this looks to have all the makings of a very good and tense meeting.”

LEICESTER: Nick Morris, Dan Thompson, Ryan Douglas, Kyle Howarth, Chris Harris, Joe Thompson, Zaine Kennedy.
POOLE: Steve Worrall, Danyon Hume, Rory Schlein, Ben Cook, Danny King, Zach Cook, Benjamin Basso.