After the cancellation of Leicester’s pre-season warm-up match against the Coventry Bees the Harry Jordan Haulage Lions are thrust into a League Cup fixture at Scunthorpe on Good Friday without the advantage of a team practice match beforehand.
It will not be the easiest of starts either for Leicester who face last season’s Premier League Champions who edged home by one point on aggregate in the Play-off Final against Somerset to win the title.
The Scunthorpe promotion has stayed loyal to the riders who won the title with the only omission being Nick Morris who is now at Somerset and Gary Irving who was handed a team place only to announce his retirement in January. That led to the club unexpectedly entering into the transfer market and they offered the Mildenhall rider Josh Bates a place in the Scorpions side. Also making his debut alongside Bates is Ryan Douglas from Australia. The nineteen year old from Brisbane spent ‘a busman’s holiday’ in the UK last summer gaining a number of second half bookings.
The Scorpions welcome back their captain David Howe from an injury ravaged 2012 season and he forms a strong partnership at the head of the team with Josh Auty and Thomas Jorgensen. With Ashley Birks and Michael Palm Toft in support of the big three the league champions have another strong look about them.
“Ideally we would have liked a meeting beforehand to get ourselves back into the swing of things but the same applies to the Scunthorpe riders. Kauko Nieminen and Kevin Doolan were hoping to get some laps under their belts in David Howe’s Testimonial meeting at Scunthorpe last weekend but that fell foul to the weather. It is an important meeting to go into cold for both teams particularly as so much is at stake so early in the season” commented the Lions Co-promoter Alan Jones. Leicester have been drawn with Scunthorpe and Sheffield and the winners of Group 3 will progress through to the semi-finals of the competition.
On Saturday Leicester host a fixture against the Sheffield Tigers at the Jordan Road Surfacing Stadium and Taylor has named the same riding order. “The visitors have a solid top four but also have three riders who are starting out on a path to a career in the Premier League so it will be intriguing to see whether the trio will hit the ground running and so provide their top end scorers with enough points to see them win matches” added Jones.
One of the signings of the close season has to be the homecoming of Simon Stead who spent four seasons in Tigers colours a decade ago in what was a golden spell for the Yorkshire club when they were twice Premier League Champions together with a plethora of other National titles during his time there. Last season Simon was at Swindon where he ended the campaign with a healthy near seven points’ average and retains his link with the Elite League by doubling up with King’s Lynn this year. Now as captain of the Tigers Simon will lead the team out at Leicester on Saturday.
Joining Stead at the top end of the side is Ricky Wells who has plenty of experience through his appearances in the Elite League with Wolverhampton and returning to his former club is the Lions first captain of the new era Richard Hall who made 23 appearances for the team before a mid-season departure to Scunthorpe. In the middle of the side is Joe Haines, the current British Under-21 Champion, who returned to something like his previous form before a serious racing accident in Australia temporarily curtailed a promising career.
The three remaining team members who are at the beginning of their careers in the Premier League are Jake Knight who rode for King’s Lynn in the National League and now steps up on a full-time basis in the middle tier of racing, Facundo Albin a nineteen year old Argentinian who finished second in his country’s international championship series and Damien Koppe from Queensland, Australia who had an after the meeting spin at Leicester last year and received his chance to break into British Speedway with an offer of a team place at Sheffield towards the back end of last season.
Teams
Scunthorpe: 1. Josh Auty, 2. Thomas Jorgensen, 3. Michael Palm Toft, 4. Ashley Birks, 5. David Howe, 6. Josh Bates and 7. Ryan Douglas
Leicester: 1. Kauko Nieminen, 2. Jan Graversen, 3. Lasse Bjerre, 4. Adam Roynon, 5. Kevin Doolan, 6, Simon Nielsen and 7. Lewis Blackbird
Sheffield: 1. Simon Stead, 2. Facundo Albin, 3. Joe Haines, 4. Richard Hall, 5, Ricky Wells, 6. Jake Knight and 7. Damien Koppe
