LIONS CLINCH PLAY-OFF SPOT

LEICESTER secured their place in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership play-offs with a devastating opening to defeat King’s Lynn 52-38 at the Hydroscand Arena.

The Lions opened the meeting with three successive 5-1s and following it up with three successive 4-2s to put matters beyond the Stars’ reach.

Former Leicester captain Max Fricke then won three races and totalled 13, but their play-off hopes are now hanging by a thread.

Ryan Douglas continued his outstanding form for the Lions with 14 from five rides, whilst Dan Thomposn was in double figures with 10.

Leicester manager Stewart Dickson said: “I’m very happy with the result, and I think at the start of the meeting we knocked the stuffing out of King’s Lynn.

“They were much better in the second half of the meeting. I don’t think we eased off in any way, but we certainly did the damage early doors and it’s good to be in the play-offs again.

“There was some tough racing out there, and we almost take it for granted now with Dougy stepping up as No.1 and getting double figures week in, week out. The rest of the team backed him up and it was a good, solid team performance.”

King’s Lynn boss Rob Lyon said: “It was typical really that Max made the start in Heat 1 and then had a puncture, so a 3-3 turned into a 5-1.

“It was one of our typical slow starts. We’ve had a few of those unfortunately, and we leave ourselves with too much to do to realistically get back in to make an impact.

“We rallied a little bit and given the start we had it was a respectable scoreline I guess – but it’s not play-off form unfortunately.”

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Photo credit: STEVE DIXON