KING’S Lynn welcome back skipper Josh Pickering for their Sports Insure Premiership trip to Sheffield on Thursday (7.30pm).

The MacInnes Stars are keen for an upturn in fortunes in the road after defeat at Peterborough on Monday, and the return of Pickering after a month on the sidelines is a very timely boost.

Pickering will line up at reserve alongside Jason Edwards with the Stars’ top five in an unchanged order as they look for a significant improvement on their Owlerton reverse in the KO Cup at Easter.

Remarkably, the Tigers have not raced at home since that meeting, and have suffered a couple of recent defeats on the road, including at Leicester on Monday when they went down 53-37.

But they still track a strong septet who are hotly tipped to be in the race for honours this season, with Polish racer Tobiasz Musielak having made a successful return from a collarbone injury earlier in the spring.

And Stars boss Alex Brady insists his side can make things much easier for themselves if they can show an improvement to their gating, having been found wanting in that department in their last fixture at the Showground.

Brady said: “We weren’t good enough from the gate against Peterborough, and that will be the message ahead of Thursday.

“We’ve got to make sure that we gate, and make sure that we are strong, aggressive and brave – that’s what I want from the boys, and if we can do that at Sheffield we’ll give ourselves a fighting chance.

“It’s a really tough place to go, they’re an incredible side, but we’re a good side too when we want to be, and hopefully on Thursday we can redeem ourselves a bit.”

The return fixture against the Tigers is at the Adrian Flux Arena next Thursday (June 1) in a busy month featuring four home matches.

SHEFFIELD: Jack Holder, David Bellego, Adam Ellis, Kyle Howarth, Tobiasz Musielak, Lewis Kerr, Dan Gilkes.
KING’S LYNN: Nicolai Klindt, Thomas Jorgensen, Frederik Jakobsen, Michael Palm Toft, Krzysztof Kasprzak, Josh Pickering, Jason Edwards.