HOLDER ABSENCE EXPLAINED

PREMIERSHIP CEO Phil Morris has moved to clarify the circumstances surrounding Jack Holder’s absence from tonight’s match between Wolverhampton and Sheffield at Monmore Green.

The Tigers No.1 misses the meeting due to a re-arranged Polish Ekstraliga fixture for Lublin against Krosno, with the Owlerton club bringing in Nick Morris to guest.

Morris has stressed that Monday is not an automatic priority night for Poland, and this is a one-off scenario arising from changes to the British fixture list.

He said: “The arrangement which was made with Poland does give them priority on riders for their fixtures which are postponed and re-arranged on Thursdays.

“Originally this fixture was going to be re-arranged for a date which would have taken Jason Doyle, Jack Holder and Krzysztof Kasprzak out of Premiership matches, so after discussions it was agreed that this fixture would run tonight.

“At the time of those discussions there were no Premiership matches scheduled as it was due to be the first round of the Pairs, from which the clubs are able to select any two of their top five riders.

“We therefore agreed that this Monday would be available as a one-off, in order to prevent the Polish fixture from taking place on another day which would have created more rider unavailability.

“We are working together to minimise disruption, but I just felt it was important to clarify that the UK still has priority on a Monday.

“This particular meeting was a specific, one-off arrangement made to ease the situation elsewhere on a night when originally there were no Premiership fixtures.”