STOKE travel to the Isle of Wight to face the Warriors in National League action at the Smallbrook Stadium on Thursday night, 7pm.

The Warriors have rode more meetings that the A.R. Richards Potters, but haven’t had the success they had hoped at the start of the season having only secured one victory in five outings this season with one victory and two defeats in the National Trophy and two defeats against Cradley in the quarter-finals of the KO Cup losing both legs although they did put up a better display against the Black Country outfit on Monday night at Monmore Green as they slipped to a 46-44 defeat.
The Warriors are spearheaded by Georgie Wood who made the switch to the island club from Eastbourne over the close season and the experienced Ben Morley who won the National League riders’ championship at Leicester last season. Danno Verge and two former Potters riders Ryan Terry-Daley and Chris Widman form the middle order of the Warriors line-up with Connor King and Chad Wirtzfeld completing the septet.

The Potters will be without Corban Pavitt for the meeting with Arran Butcher replacing him at reserve.

Potters team manager Adam Isherwood commented “The meeting at the Isle of Wight will be a difficult one although I do expect us to get the points back that we lost in our home meeting against Kent last week and that is most certainly the plan. We go into each meeting wanting to win and there is a great spirit in the camp. Joe Lawlor he’s geeing the lads up and he’s just what we needed he’s a fresh face and a good rider and has a good character despite what other people say I like the lad and he’s up for winning and I want riders in the team that want to win races and want to win meetings and I feel going to the Isle of Wight hopefully and it won’t be for the lack of effort but we can go there and recoup the points we lost at Loomer road the other week and any away points that you can gain is a bonus. The three main men in our team at the moment can go there and do well Tom (Perry) and Connor (Coles) spent a season there and Joe Lawlor rides the big tracks well and I think with the top five we have now got are able to win meetings on their own and anything we get from the youngsters at reserve is a bonus but I know they are despite being youngsters capable of scoring some good points as Joe Alcock did at Belle Vue last month.”

ISLE OF WIGHT: Georgie Wood, Chris Widman, Ryan Terry-Daley, Danno Verge, Ben Morley (Captain), Connor King, Chad Wirtzfeld
STOKE: Tom Perry (Captain), Shelby Rutherford, Joe Lawlor, Luke Priest, Connor Coles, Arran Butcher, Joe Alcock