Workington Comets have been given a boost ahead of this afternoon’s home meeting at Northside against the Scunthorpe Scorpions.
Both skipper Craig Cook and exciting young Australian Tate Zischke have been passed fit to ride in this key Championship fixture.
Cook took a knock on Thursday night when he came off riding for Leicester at Oxford while Zischke has recovered from a bad smash in Poland which left him with a back injury.
The Comets will, however, be without history-making signing Celina Liebmann who is taking part in the Women’s Open Championship in Teterow, Germany this weekend.
The Comets promotion have managed to secure the services of Redcar’s in-form reserve Jake Mulford to take her place at reserve.
The Scoprions have their absentee from their last meeting at Northside – Nathan Ablitt back from injury.
But a crash involving Ablitt and Micheal Palm-Toft at Berwick a few weeks ago ruled the Dane out with a broken collarbone, so the Scorpions are bringing in Edinburgh Monarch Justin Sedgmen at number 5 which will be his third time here this season.
Scunthorpe will also be without impressive youngster and 2023 Comet Luke Harrison, who is taking part in the Under 19 European Pairs Final in Poland. Redcar’s Ben Trigger will guest in Harrison’s place.
Back in April, the Scorpions took to the Northside circuit for the first time and were convincingly beaten 56-34 and Workington team boss James Denham is hoping that a repeat performance is on the cards.
He said: “It’s been a while since we’ve had a meeting but most of our riders have been kept busy which is important as we get into the crunch part of the season.
“I’m sure Scunthorpe will be looking to avoid a similar result to that of their last visit to Northside and will come out fighting, which is why we need to hit the ground running on Saturday.
“It’s great to have Tate back after his awful crash but we are without Celina, nevertheless we have definitely got a very capable guest in Jake [Mulford] who has shown his liking to the place during his last visits here.
“The all-important playoffs are fast approaching and as I’ve said before that is our aim! This means, while not trying to focus on the bigger picture of our league position yet, we need to secure as many points and aggregate points as we can over our home and away legs.
“Another victory and a decent aggregate margin this weekend will definitely put us in good stead for when we go down to Scunthorpe next month for the aggregate bonus point.”
Two former Comets, skipper Simon Lambert and number one Kyle Howarth are in the Scunthorpe line-up and they will have two guests – Justin Sedgman at five and Ben Trigger at seven.
