LEICESTER look to add to their Sports Insure Premiership points tally when they make the trip to Sheffield on Thursday (7.30pm).
The Watling JCB Lions are on a terrific run of four straight victories, and six out of seven, although the match at Owlerton is likely to present a serious test.
The Tigers were billed by many as title favourites after their near-miss last year, and they have now further strengthened with the signing of Josh Pickering as a replacement for the struggling David Bellego.
Pickering started the season with King’s Lynn but was taken out of their team whilst he recovered from injury, and he has now elected to join the Yorkshire club with Thursday scheduled to be his first match back in the UK.
Sheffield currently sit fourth in the league table, one place and four points behind the Lions with a match in hand, although they have only raced three home matches so far.
The aggregate point situation appears to be in Leicester’s favour going into the meeting as they took an impressive 53-37 win when the sides met at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park in mid-May.
And so far this season, the Lions have scored at least 38 points in every meeting and only failed to reach 42 once.
Boss Stewart Dickson names an unchanged team from the victory at King’s Lynn on Monday, and there are two former Tigers in the side in Justin Sedgmen and Drew Kemp, whilst Jake Allen also had a brief spell with Sheffield last season.
Dickson said: “It’s a tough match for sure, especially with them bringing Josh Pickering in just in time to face us, but we need to focus on our own team and we go there in confident mood.
“Winning there will be difficult, I’m not going to dress it up because they’re pretty good around their own place.
“But we have a 16-point lead, so at worst I expect to come away with the aggregate point, and if we could add that to the win at King’s Lynn then it would be a decent week.
“If we can get a sniff of a victory, obviously we’ll be going for it, but we know this probably presents a tougher challenge than in our last two away meetings.”
SHEFFIELD: Tobiasz Musielak, Lewis Kerr, Adam Ellis, Josh Pickering, Jack Holder, Kyle Howarth, Dan Gilkes.
LEICESTER: Max Fricke, Justin Sedgmen, Richard Lawson, Chris Harris, Nick Morris, Jake Allen, Drew Kemp.
