Saturday’s visitors to the Jordan Road Surfacing Stadium are the Swindon Robins who currently sit on the fringe of the play-off zone.
Swindon have finished in the top four of the Elite League table six times out of the last eight seasons, twice making it through to the final where they lost to the eventual champions Coventry and Wolverhampton respectively. It was third time lucky though for the Wiltshire club two years ago when the Robins won the Grand Final 95-89 against the Poole Pirates. It was an historic milestone for the club as the last league championship success was as far back as 1967.
“Swindon have consistently been amongst the forerunners and we should not underestimate their strength on Saturday. In Peter Kildemand and Troy Batchelor they are a formidable pair who can be relied upon to score heavily and are backed up by two Leicester track specialists, Nick Morris and Dakota North. There will be more pressure on them than us as Swindon cannot afford to drop points because three other clubs are also in the running for a semi-final place and we want to keep our home winning sequence going. We showed against Coventry last week that we now have a team to match anyone at Leicester and with Jason Doyle returning I am optimistic that we can win this one” said the Lions Team Manager Norrie Allan.
There is no good news though about a return date for Leicester’s Polish rider Krzysztof Buczkowski who broke his shoulder blade last month at Poole and the Rapid Solicitors Lions are continuing to cover for his absence with the use of guest riders. On Saturday Leicester bring in one of Team GB’s World Cup riders Danny King who rides for Newcastle in the Premier League. King was the captain of the Birmingham side before the club prematurely closed in July and he will form the opening partnership with Doyle against Swindon on Saturday.
Teams
Leicester: 1. Jason Doyle, 2. Danny King, 3. Mads Korneliussen, 4. Nicolai Klindt, 5. Simon Stead, 6. Josh Bates and 7. Max Clegg
Swindon: 1. Peter Kildemand, 2. Nick Morris, 3. Simon Gustafsson, 4. Dakota North, 5. Troy Batchelor, 6. Guest for Steven Worrall tbc and 7. Nathan Greaves
