Stars face biggest meeting of the season

King’s Lynn go into their biggest match of the season tonight as local rivals Ipswich provide the opposition in the first leg of their KO Cup semi-final.The sides meet at the Adrian Flux Arena before completing the tie at Foxhall on Thursday, and the PSH Environmental Stars will be keen to have a lead to take into that encounter.With a super-strong line-up once again in 2025, Ipswich began the season in devastating form with some observers suggesting they could even win every single meeting, home and away.However, the situation has now changed somewhat as after suffering a narrow defeat at Sheffield, the Witches were then hit by a double injury blow in the space of 24 hours last month.Former World Champion Jason Doyle is currently sidelined due to a hip injury after two recent crashes, whilst Dan Thompson, who was a source of major points at reserve, is out with a broken scaphoid.The Witches overcame those setbacks to win at Birmingham, but their last home outing saw them lose 47-43 to Leicester, and they still have Doyle and Thompson missing on Monday.Rider replacement will be in operation for Doyle with Ipswich boss Ritchie Hawkins electing to place it in the No.2 position – so it naturally follows that he expects to deploy star man Emil Sayfutdinov in Heat 8. Meanwhile, Thompson’s place at reserve is taken by former Lynn captain Simon Lambert, who ironically filled in as team manager for the Stars earlier this season. For the home side, Ben Cook continues to be on the sidelines with his broken wrist, with both rider and club hoping that he can get back into action later this month.Stars again have chosen not to go down the rider replacement route, a decision they had taken before last Monday’s rain-off at Birmingham, and therefore Oxford’s Peter Kildemand will step in as a guest.The Dane was a member of the Spires side beaten by the Stars in the quarter-finals and he has now begun to hit a run of decent form in his first season back in UK racing. New averages for June mean Richard Lawson takes over at No.1 with Jan Kvech, who enjoyed an encouraging Czech Republic GP on Saturday, switching to reserve. Skipper Nicolai Klindt and Chris Harris will team up in the middle order.Stars manager Rob Lyon said: “We all know the significance of any match against Ipswich but this one is particularly important with it being a Cup semi-final, and the riders are all fully aware of that. “It’s vitally important that we beat them on Monday and hopefully build a lead to take down there, and that’s something we are capable of doing if we can just find that consistency which we’ve lacked at times.“We didn’t want to do r/r, so we thank Peter for coming in for us, and we will all be ready for a strong challenge from Ipswich, even though they have a couple of riders out. “Hopefully the crowd will get right behind us on Monday night, it’s a local derby and we know what that means to everyone.”King’s Lynn: Richard Lawson, Peter Kildemand, Nicolai Klindt, Chris Harris, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Jan Kvech, Ashton Boughen.Ipswich: Emil Sayfutdinov, Jason Doyle r/r, Adam Ellis, Tom Brennan, Danny King, Simon Lambert, Jordan Jenkins.