SHEFFIELD head to Ipswich on Tuesday (October 3, 7.30) for the first leg of the 2023 Sports Insure Premiership Grand Final.
The meeting in Suffolk was due to take place on Monday, but Tru Plant Tigers’ bosses were informed on Sunday afternoon that the fixture had been pushed back 24-hours due to a poor forecast around Foxhall Stadium.
It means their original guest choice of Chris Harris is now unavailable for the away leg due to his Championship club Glasgow being involved in the second tier play-offs – so the Tigers have once again called upon Leicester’s Richard Lawson who helped Sheffield beat Wolverhampton in the semi-finals.
Elsewhere, Robert Lambert and Connor Mountain will once again deputise for the Steel City side who will be looking to produce a positive display ahead of the decider at Owlerton on Thursday (October 5, 7.30).
It will be the first ever time in British Speedway top-flight play-off history that the teams who have finished third and fourth in the regular standings have faced each other in the Grand Final – and the two have plenty of recent history.
Sheffield’s last league title came in the second tier in 2017, where they beat Ipswich to lift the trophy.
And as little as three weeks ago, Ipswich defeated the Tigers to claim the Knockout Cup – something which team boss Simon Stead reckons will motivate his group even further ahead of the first leg.
“That Knockout Cup Final hurt us,” he said.
“But I think from that disappointment we’ve improved and we are a better team now than when we faced Ipswich at that time.
“We may have a patched-up team but the lads who have come in have mixed really, really well with our regular riders and there’s a real determination about all of them to get the job done now.
“We will get our heads down and go again and I’m sure it will be a fantastic final over two legs.
“I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved as a Club since stepping up into the Premiership; we reached the semi-finals in our first year, we narrowly, narrowly missed out on the title last season, so now it’s time to go one better and win it for the very first time.”
IPSWICH: Emil Sayfutdinov, Erik Riss, Danny King, Keynan Rew, Jason Doyle, Danyon Hume, Joe Thompson. SHEFFIELD: Robert Lambert, Kyle Howarth, Chris Holder, Josh Pickering, Richard Lawson, Connor Mountain, Jason Edwards.
