PICKERING: WE FIGHT ON

SHEFFIELD star Josh Pickering insists the Tigers will fight to the end as they bid for a huge Sports Insure Premiership Grand Final turnaround at Owlerton tonight (Thursday).

Pickering’s determination was evident in his superb third to first effort in Heat 14 of the first leg at Ipswich, but the Tigers go into the return fixture facing an 18-point deficit.

That was the margin they ran up in just ten races of the second leg of their semi-final against Wolverhampton last week before that meeting was curtailed due to the weather.

Robert Lambert continues as a guest at No.1 with Chris Harris now coming in at No.5, and Jye Etheridge takes over at reserve.

Pickering said: “The way I look at it, they’ve rolled us at their place but there’s no reason why we can’t do that to them at home.

“Our boys that we’ve got here this year, especially with Robert coming in, he brings a big boost, we’ve got Bomber in, myself and Chris (Holder) are in the middle and we’ve got capable second strings and reserves as well so it’s not impossible.

“What will be will be but we’re not going to go down without a fight.

“In my opinion, I honestly think that in the first half a dozen heats at Sheffield we can pull it back and I think it’s going to be very close.

“In our team, there were riders who didn’t score at Ipswich what they definitely will at Sheffield.

“I’m well up for it, we’re all well up for it and we cannot wait for the second leg.”