Peterborough Panthers are on the home straight for this season and probably for ever

The Crendon Panthers gave an encouraging performance at Owlerton last week, going down by just six points, and with a full-strength side they will look for what has become a somewhat elusive home win.

Panthers still have a realistic chance of overhauling A47 rivals King’s Lynn in the league table, and that could happen if they are successful on Monday, with the Stars having a tough trip to Belle Vue.

The aggregate point is also in play, although this is a Round 1 fixture and therefore the gap is 14 points, after Panthers went down 37-23 in a rain-affected clash in South Yorkshire earlier in the summer.

The Tigers make their first visit of the season and bring with them treble World Champion Tai Woffinden for his first appearance at Alwalton in a decade – whilst the visitors also include spectacular Polish star Tobiasz Musielak and former British Champion Adam Ellis.

They are favourites to secure a play-off place although they actually start Monday’s meeting in fifth place in the table, one point behind Ipswich albeit with four matches in hand.

Panthers skipper Chris Harris has enjoyed an excellent week of results, and followed up his 16-point haul at Sheffield with a paid maximum for Glasgow 24 hours later, including taking a race win despite having to go from the 15-metre handicap on a borrowed bike!

Harris said: “We had a bit of bad luck at Sheffield, Jordan (Jenkins) blew an engine up and he had some other bike problems, and on the whole to lose by only six was a good score.

“We’re looking forward to the next meeting on Monday, we want to win all our home matches and maybe cause a bit of an upset with some of the teams who are chasing the play-offs.”

PETERBOROUGH: Chris Harris, Vadim Tarasenko, Benjamin Basso, Ben Cook, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Patryk Wojdylo, Jordan Jenkins.

SHEFFIELD: Tobiasz Musielak, Kyle Howarth, Adam Ellis, Josh Pickering, Tai Woffinden, Lewis Kerr, Dan Gilkes.