POSTPONED: LEICESTER v SHEFFIELD (Sports Insure Prem)

LEICESTER’S home clash with Sheffield on Thursday has been postponed due to a torrential downpour.

A new date is to be confirmed.

LEICESTER face rivals Sheffield in a big clash of two sides currently in the Sports Insure play-off places tonight (Thursday).

The Lions suffered a home defeat at the hands of Ipswich on Monday to end their eight-match winning run, but they still start the meeting at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park with a five-point advantage over the Tigers in the league table.

Sheffield named Tai Woffinden as a new signing this week as an injury replacement for Jack Holder, and have confirmed his debut will be next Monday at Belle Vue. The Tigers draft in Connor Mountain as a guest.

Boss Simon Stead explained: “With Jack getting injured at this time of the year, we had no choice but to declare Tai in our team on Monday night.

“Because of his schedule and the logistics and things like that though, we knew he wouldn’t be likely to commit until the beginning of next week.

“I guess you could say it’s short term pain for further long term gain and as Damien (Bates – co-promoter) said when we were able to announce Tai on Tuesday, we would much rather suffer that for one meeting rather than be struggling to secure guests for all the other meetings we’ve got coming up later this month.

“The Sheffield side we’ve got, including Connor because we all know what he can do, are still more than capable of pushing Leicester – but we know they’ll also be fired up following their home loss to Ipswich on Monday.”

Leicester manager Stewart Dickson has switched his riding order with Richard Lawson returning to No.3, exchanging places with Troy Batchelor.

Dickson said: “I was enjoying the Richard Lawson/Chris Harris partnership, and I think we can get more out of the team overall by moving Richard back to No.3.

“It’s all about the balance, and I want to get the balance back regardless of the fact that on Monday it was a case of the majority of the team having an off-night on the same night – it’s not about individuals, it’s about the team as a whole.

“We’ll dust ourselves down for Sheffield, and we’ll re-group and do things sensibly as we always do at Leicester, and we’ll have a right good go on Thursday.”

LEICESTER: Max Fricke, Justin Sedgmen, Richard Lawson, Chris Harris, Troy Batchelor, Jake Allen, Drew Kemp.
SHEFFIELD: Tobiasz Musielak, Kyle Howarth, Adam Ellis, Josh Pickering, Connor Mountain, Lewis Kerr, Dan Gilkes.