TIGERS START AT HOME

SHEFFIELD promoter Damien Bates says he took supporters and staff into consideration when electing not to switch the home date of their ROWE Motor Oil Premiership play-off semi-final.

With the scheduled first leg at Leicester postponed due to the weather on Monday, the Tigers were offered the opportunity to keep the second leg, but the teams will meet as planned in South Yorkshire on Thursday.

Bates said: “As soon as the play-off dates were announced, I know we had supporters and volunteers who swapped work shifts and things like that to make sure they could be at our home leg of the semi-finals.

“At such short notice, the likelihood is that they wouldn’t have been able to change those things back, and we didn’t want them to miss out on our biggest meeting of the season to date because of that.

“Don’t get me wrong, it would’ve been nice to have had the deciding leg at Sheffield because you know exactly what you need to do on your home track.

“But it doesn’t change too much I guess, and now we’ll just know what we need to do at Leicester instead – and hopefully go there with a lead, and a fairly healthy one at that!”