PREVIEW: SHEFFIELD v KING’S LYNN (ROWE MOTOR OIL PREM)

JACK Holder returns at No.1 for Sheffield who kickstart a pivotal period of their season at home to King’s Lynn tonight (Thursday).

The Australian missed the Tigers’ recent ROWE Motor Oil Premiership defeats at Oxford and Leicester but was back on a bike in last week’s Speedway of Nations.

It’s a huge boost for the South Yorkshire side who still have work to do to secure their play-off position.

They currently sit third with meetings in hand on Ipswich and Belle Vue, who are above them in the table, but more importantly they hold a six point gap over Leicester who are outside the top four, and Tom Brennan guests for the injured Tai Woffinden.

Manager Simon Stead said: “We’re on a pretty solid run at home lately with our last three meetings all resulting in 18-point victories for us.

“We want to carry that on as best we can because that way we will get into the play-offs and we’ll have a bit of momentum behind us again.

“Having Jack back is obviously great for the team and whilst we’re still without Tai (Woffinden), to have at least one of our top two fit again can help us get back on track.”

Meanwhile King’s Lynn bring in Justin Sedgmen at No.1 whilst rider replacement is in operation for the injured Nicolai Klindt as they continue to chase a new signing.

Operations manager Dale Allitt said: “It’s not ideal of course with the facility having expired at No.1 and so few options with only one Premiership team not racing.

“What we can say is that a lot of work is going on behind the scenes, although as other teams have found out recently, it’s not easy!

“But we are hopeful of moving towards having a new rider coming in within the next couple of weeks, that is very much what we are working to achieve, and we should know more in the near future.”

SHEFFIELD: Jack Holder, Tom Brennan, Josh Pickering, Kyle Howarth, Chris Holder, Jason Edwards, Dan Gilkes.
KING’S LYNN: Justin Sedgmen, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Jan Kvech, Benjamin Basso, Nicolai Klindt R/R, Patryk Wojdylo, Anders Rowe.
SCB Referee: Craig Ackroyd