RICHARD Hall is out of Sheffield's Premier League play-off semi-final trip to Edinburgh on Friday (7.30).

Hall has a massive FIM Longtrack meeting in Finland at the weekend and has to be in Helsinki early on Saturday morning, making it impossible for him to be at Armadale with the Tigers.

The club have been granted a facility to share his four programmed rides around the team with the rider-replacement rule.

Tigers owner Neil Machin said: "Riders like Ricky Ashworth, Josh Auty and Josef Franc will have a big part to play in this and we will need them to score well if we are to achieve our aim of keeping it close.

"I'd be happy to stay within 8-10 points of Edinburgh although in the first instance we will go there in a positive frame of mind, looking to win the meeting."

Edinburgh have been magnificent throughout the season and have appeared in both the promotion/relegation play-offs so far.

The winners of this tie will go into the Premier League final against either Birmingham or Newcastle and the winners of the final will then face Elite League bottom club Ipswich for a place in next year's top flight.

Stoke's Ricky Wells has again been booked to replace the injured Paul Cooper at reserve for Tigers.

Tigers star Josh Auty will be looking for a good display tonight to take into the Premier League Riders' Championship at Owlerton on Sunday (5.30).

TIGERS: Josh Auty, Hugh Skidmore, Richard Hall R/R, Josef Franc, Ricky Ashworth, Ricky Wells, Simon Lambert.