KNOCKOUT Cup winners Leicester return to ROWE Motor Oil Premiership action on Monday with a trip back to King’s Lynn on league business (7.30pm).
With major silverware already in the cabinet, the Watling JCB Lions’ next task is to score the points required to secure a play-off place for the second successive season.
They are currently third in the table on 27 points, one ahead of Sheffield after their excellent win at Owlerton ten days ago.
King’s Lynn are the only other club who can realistically overhaul the Lions, but they are 13 points behind Leicester with eight matches remaining, and the likely situation is that the Lions will require a maximum of three wins from their last seven fixtures to make sure.
They can make that equation more straightforward with victory in Norfolk, and the aggregate point should be very much in their hands as they lead 53-37 from the reverse fixture at the Hydroscand Arena, Beaumont Park.
Team news for Monday sees Lions revert to operating rider replacement for the injured Luke Becker at No.2, with only one Premiership club not racing on the night.
The home side do have a different look about them as new averages for August mean Jan Kvech moving to No.1, whilst a potentially more significant change is that captain Nicolai Klindt, who piled up points at reserve in the Cup Final, is now back in the main body of the team.
The rider dropping down is the currently absent Ben Cook, with the Stars bringing in Danish rider Tobias Thomsen to guest at No.6.
After the celebrations of Thursday night the match at the Adrian Flux Arena is a return to the bread and butter of collecting league points, and manager Stewart Dickson is turning his attentions to the possibility of securing a dream double.
Dickson said: “We’ve got the Cup and now we’d like to make it an even better season, but there’s a long way to go yet.
“I hark back to 2019 when we won the Championship Shield and then we won the league a few months later, and it would be very nice to do the same again.
“We know it’s going to be tough. There are some good teams out there but there’s no reason why we can’t, if we hit form at the right time.
“Most managers will say that about their own team, but we know that if we do hit form Leicester will be very difficult to beat over two legs.”
KING’S LYNN: Jan Kvech, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Chris Harris, Richard Lawson, Nicolai Klindt, Tobias Thomsen, Luke Harrison.
LEICESTER: Max Fricke, Luke Becker R/R, Ryan Douglas, Kyle Howarth, Sam Masters, Drew Kemp, Joe Thompson.
