Speedway: Sheffield set to start Premiership defence, but practice session cancelled

Sheffield are set to start the defence of their Speedway Premiership title, five months after lifting the trophy at Owlerton.

The club will start their first meeting of the season with an away trip to Oxford, on Thursday night, and the team features three time world champion Tai Woffinden and world number four Jack Holder.

They had planned an Owlerton practice section on Wednesday evening (March 20), but that has had to be cancelled because of wet weather.

All seven riders in this year's Tru7 Group Tigers line-up rode for the club at one stage during the 2023 season, but it will be the first time Woffinden and Holder feature in the same Tigers team. Promoter Damien Bates feels the Tigers have got the strongest top five in the division as well as two of the UK's brightest prospects at reserve.

He said: “It’s one of the easiest teams I’ve ever managed to put together.

“It was all done, sorted and sealed so early as well and I’m more than happy with the seven riders we’ve got at Sheffield again this year.

"We’ve got two top level, world class riders leading the team in Jack (Holder) and Tai (Woffinden) and they’re backed up by three quality riders in Chris Holder, who's a former World Champion, Josh Pickering and Kyle (Howarth).

"Both Jason (Edwards) and Dan (Gilkes) deserve to be back and it should be another exciting year for them because they’re young, they’re improving all the time and they’ll carry on learning from the top five.

"With a top five like we've got, we’ll always have a chance of winning meetings and that takes a bit of pressure off the two reserves but as we saw last year, they are already at a stage where they can score points at this level."

Sheffield will also head to Premiership newcomers Birmingham next Monday (March 25, 7.30) with the first fixture at Owlerton on Thursday, March 28 (7.30) when Oxford are the visitors.