Speedway: Line-ups confirmed as Sheffield bid for first trophy of the season at Ipswich

And both teams will be using rider replacement in the second leg at Foxhall, with the Tru7 Group Tigers riders covering for the injured Tai Woffinden, who has confirmed he will miss the rest of the season, and the Ipswich side sharing Jason Doyle’s rides.

Meanwhile, Keynan Rew and Tom Brennan both ride again for the home side.

Sheffield take a 20 point aggregate lead to Ipswich on Thursday (September 5, 7.30pm) as they aim to be crowned Premiership Knockout Cup winners.

Tigers beat the Witches 55-35 at Owlerton, winning 14 of the 15 races with Australian duo Jack Holder and Josh Pickering both going unbeaten by an opponent.

It’s a third successive cup final for the Tigers since moving into British Speedway’s top-flight. They won the Premiership League Cup in 2022 before missing out to Ipswich in last year’s cup final.

Team manager Simon Stead admits it would be the perfect lead into the play-offs later this month, if they could add another trophy to their collection, after also securing top spot in the regular Rowe Motor Oil Premiership standings earlier this week.

“It takes a lot of hard work all year long from the lads to get to this point,” Stead said.

“We deserve to be where we are and full credit to the lads because they’re helping us fulfil our ambitions of striving to continue to keep moving the club forward.

“Ourselves and Ipswich have built up a little bit of a rivalry over these past 12 months or so and you can feel that whenever we both meet.

“The lads appear to be even more pumped to get some more silverware and they’ve put us in a really good position heading to Foxhall.

“We saw how strong they can start meetings the last time we went there a couple of weeks ago so we’ll take note of that.

“But the lads really are buoyant at this moment in time and they’re adamant they’re not going to defend our 20 point lead, they’d love to try and win the second leg as well.

“But we’ll just take each race as it comes and we’ll be happy if it’s a case of job done at the end of the night.”

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Ipswich team manager Ritchie Hawkins said: “We saw in last year’s play-off final what Sheffield did to us in the second leg of that, things happen in sport.

“We are massive underdogs and face an uphill task, but we will be out there giving it everything. We don’t want to let the trophy go that we have worked so hard for, and the boys have shown enough this year for everyone to know what they are about and how hard they are going to fight.

“We need to start well and get momentum going early and keep it going from there. It looks like we will need a near-perfect night from everyone and obviously that is what we will be going out aiming to do.”

For any supporters unable to make the trip to Foxhall, all the action can be viewed live online via BSN.

Ipswich: Jason Doyle R/R, Adam Ellis, Keynan Rew, Tom Brennan, Danny King, Jordan Jenkins, Dan Thompson.

Sheffield: Jack Holder, Kyle Howarth, Chris Holder, Josh Pickering, Tai Woffinden R/R, Jason Edwards, Dan Gilkes.