LEICESTER commence the serious business of chasing league points when they host Belle Vue in a mouthwatering ROWE Motor Oil Premiership opener on Thursday (7.30pm).
The Aces arrive at the Hydroscand Arena, Beaumont Park six months after they were crowned champions for the second time in three years when they got the better of the Watling JCB Lions in the Grand Final.
2025 started with differing fortunes for the two sides in the KO Cup as whilst the Lions eased past Birmingham into the semi-finals, the Aces were beaten at home by Ipswich and were then slammed 67-23 in the return at Foxhall.
But nobody in the sport believes that result was anything other than a one-off, and the Manchester side recovered to post a somewhat fortuitous win at King’s Lynn in their league opener before a far more convincing display at home on Monday when they beat the Stars 57-33.
And they include two of the World’s best riders as their spearhead with skipper Brady Kurtz set to enter the Grand Prix series for the first time this season, along with British Champion Dan Bewley who finished a best-ever fourth in the standings in 2024.
New faces for the Aces this season are Zach Cook, a winter signing from Birmingham to replace his brother Ben, whilst Aussie youngster Tate Zischke reclaims his place after suffering serious injury on his debut last July, and he will be appearing at Leicester for the first time.
Lions are unchanged from their opening Cup clashes with the Brummies, and although those meetings both ended in victories, manager Stewart Dickson has stressed they will need to step up from the home performance in particular.
He said: “It’s early in the season but straight away you’ve got to win your home matches, and we know we have two tough ones coming up on consecutive Thursdays.
“We’re under no illusions because Belle Vue come with a very strong spearhead who seem to like our track, and we’re going to have our work cut out getting amongst them.
“I definitely feel there are other places we can hurt them, but we will need to do better than we did in the last home meeting and that’s no disrespect to Birmingham, who rode very well here.
“We know the track is a little different and our riders need to find the new lines, but they’ve had a meeting on it now so they should be dialled in.
“For Thursday we don’t need to be setting targets of scoring 50 points or whatever, that comes later, at this stage it’s all about getting a win and putting our first points on the board.”
A reminder for those unable to attend that the full meeting will be live streamed on Lions TV. Passes are available from https://www.leicesterlionstv.com/ .
LEICESTER: Max Fricke, Luke Becker, Ryan Douglas, Kyle Howarth, Sam Masters, Drew Kemp, Sam Hagon.
BELLE VUE: Brady Kurtz, Norick Blodorn, Jaimon Lidsey, Zach Cook, Dan Bewley, Tate Zischke, Jake Mulford.
