PREVIEW: BIRMINGHAM v SHEFFIELD (ROWE MOTOR OIL PREM)
BIRMINGHAM bid for back-to-back home wins but face a tough test against Sheffield when the sides meet at Perry Barr tonight (Monday).
The Brummies finally enjoyed a ROWE Motor Oil Premiership victory on their own circuit against Belle Vue last time out, whilst the Tigers responded to a big defeat at Leicester last week by taking Ipswich to the wire at Foxhall on Thursday although they were beaten both in Heat 15 and the Super Heat for the aggregate point.
Birmingham again operate rider replacement for Michael Jepsen Jensen whilst Sam Hagon makes his seasonal debut for the club in the Rising Star berth replacing the injured Jason Edwards.
Sheffield are without captain Josh Pickering, who crashed in Poland on Sunday and suffered a shoulder injury, whilst Anders Rowe misses out again with a groin problem. Sam Masters and former Brummies rider Zach Cook come in to guest, and two other ex-Birmingham man Justin Sedgmen and Leon Flint could be key at reserve.
Brummies CEO Nigel Tolley said: “Sheffield had a really strong start to the season at home, but their last three away meetings have shown they can be beaten.
“Don’t get me wrong, they’ve got a number of riders who usually score very well at Perry Barr and Sedgy is now in their team and Leon has also been riding very well for Sheffield this year.
“But we showed against Belle Vue that we can grind out wins against the big teams in this league and that’s what we’ll be going all out to do on Monday.”
Tigers boss Simon Stead said: “Sedgy is up and down but he’s working hard and we know he’s trying to get that right, Lewi (Kerr) has been the same, but I do feel that progress has been made in those departments.
“It just hasn’t all been coming at the same time which has been unfortunate for us in these last few meetings.
“But we know we need everyone firing because we need some results again, but after a much better performance at Ipswich, hopefully we can build on that at Birmingham and get back to winning ways.”
BIRMINGHAM: Michael Jepsen Jensen R/R, Paco Castagna, Tobiasz Musielak, Keynan Rew, Matej Zagar, Jonas Jeppesen, Sam Hagon.
SHEFFIELD: Jack Holder, Zach Cook, Sam Masters, Lewi Kerr, Chris Holder, Justin Sedgmen, Leon Flint.
SCB Referee: Christina Turnbull
*LIVE STREAMING: https://watch.britishspeedway.co.uk
