Injury absence hitting the Lynn Stars

Frustrated King’s Lynn boss Rob Lyon admits the extended injury absence of Ben Cook is having a significantly detrimental effect on results.Cook crashed out of the Stars’ home clash with Leicester over a month ago and suffered a badly broken wrist, with his likely return date being the middle of June.Since then, Lynn have soldiered on as a six-man side, generally covering his rides within their own team due to a lack of available replacements.It’s fair to say that Cook himself wasn’t enjoying the best of starts to the season, although there had been signs of improvement in the meeting where he was injured, but a lack of consistency elsewhere has now made the team look imbalanced.And recent defeats at Leicester and then at home to Sheffield on Monday suddenly leave the Stars playing serious catch-up if they want to make it into the top four.Lyon said: “The team we put together at the start of the year is not the team we’ve got out there at the moment.“Rider replacement is the only option for us, and it’s a tough gig. “It’s still fine margins, for example, on Monday, Jan (Kvech) had a defect when he was in front, that would have made a difference as a 3-3 became a 5-1 to them. “Every team can point to various races where they’ve lost points, but we just don’t seem to get the rub of the green, and it is fine margins that we’re losing out on.“The boys were happy with the track on Monday, there’s not a major issue with that generally, but those fine margins mean you run out of options, which I said at Ipswich and at Leicester.“If we could find someone to come in temporarily, we would do it, but it’s not straightforward to do that and I’ll be honest, we’re struggling with that system at the moment.” Cook’s is still likely to miss at least five more matches, including the KO Cup semi-final clashes with Ipswich early next month, which piles the pressure on the likes of Kvech and Nicolai Klindt to take extra rides.Next on the agenda is a visit to Birmingham on Monday, and given that the Perry Barr side have lost every match so far this season, an away victory is vital. Lyon added: “That meeting becomes even more important for us, but then again we said that about Monday against Sheffield and look what happened!“But we do need to move on and get the points at Birmingham, and see where that takes us into June.”