KING’S Lynn look to pull off a big upset when they travel to runaway Premiership leaders Belle Vue on Monday (7.30pm).
The PSH Environmental Stars were knocked back out of the play-off places when Ipswich held on for a narrow home victory over Northampton on Thursday.
But the Stars are just two points behind the Witches with both teams having six league matches remaining, and clearly the upcoming derby clash at the Adrian Flux Arena on August 24 is going to be a meeting of huge significance.
Before that, the Stars have visits to Manchester and then Sheffield next Monday, and any further points they can gain on road will put more pressure on their Suffolk rivals.
Belle Vue are seven points clear at the top of the table and have a 100 per cent home record with several thumping wins in Manchester during recent months.
In fact, the Stars’ performance in late June when they went down 53-37 was one of the better ones from a visiting team to the NSS, and they were actually only eight points behind with three races remaining.
The Aces are forced into two changes as Peter Kildemand (ribs) and Tate Zischke (concussion) are both ruled out. Jason Edwards guests at reserve with news awaited as to how the home side will cover for Kildemand.
The Stars are at full strength with Jordan Jenkins now back from injury, with their side including former Belle Vue riders Max Fricke and Ben Cook, whilst skipper Chris Harris, Cooper Rushen and Jody Scott will all be competing in this Saturday’s British Final in Manchester.
After a fine performance to defeat Sheffield at the Adrian Flux Arena last week, Lynn boss Rob Lyon is looking for his side to find some much needed consistency – but he accepts it won’t be easy against the leaders.
Lyon said: “The result against Sheffield has kept our chances very much alive, and the performance was quite encouraging as well
“We now move on to the next one and we know it’s going to be a really tough one at Belle Vue, but we’ve just to go there and see what we can do as a team.
“We’ve got to try and keep the confidence up for this one and also to see if we can do something up at Sheffield again where we have a ten point lead.”
BELLE VUE: Brady Kurtz, Norick Blodorn, Peter Kildemand (Guest or R/R), Zach Cook, Jason Doyle, Jason Edwards, Will Cairns. KING’S LYNN: Max Fricke, Cooper Rushen, Chris Harris, Ben Cook, Jan Kvech, Jordan Jenkins, Jody Scott.
