Northampton Foxes hit by double injury setback ahead of Ipswich Premiership trip
Northampton Foxes have been hit by a damaging double injury blow ahead of Thursday night’s ROWE Motor Oil Premiership match at Ipswich.
Danish duo Niels-Kristian Iversen and Jonas Jeppesen will both miss the meeting after they were involved in racing incidents in a meeting in their home country on Wednesday evening.
Iversen, who made a successful debut for the Foxes at the Shaleway last Thursday where he hit double figures in the win over Leicester, is suffering with an ankle injury and is unable to make the trip to Foxhall.
Meanwhile Jeppesen, who has only just joined the Foxes as a replacement for the injured Matej Zagar, is also ruled out after a heavy crash left him battered and bruised.
In their place, the Foxes have called up British stalwart Chris Harris to make a guest appearance in place of Iversen.
Harris rode for Ipswich in 2019 and racked up 15 points from six rides on Wednesday at Poole racing for his club Glasgow in the second tier Championship.
Jeppesen’s absence will be covered by the rider replacement facility, which means Nicolai Klindt, Troy Batchelor, Kye Thomson and Luke Harrison are eligible to share his programmed outings.
Despite the double blow, Foxes will travel to Ipswich on high after securing that first win at the seventh attempt last week.
They are now on the search for their first away win, and Northampton can take some confidence from their previous trip to Ipswich in the KO Cup last month.
On that occasion they battled hard throughout the meeting, leading the early stages before going down 47-43 in what was only their second match.
Ipswich are unbeaten at home so far this season with three wins out of three, although bad weather earlier this month means they have not raced as a team since May 7.
The Witches make one change as Swedish racer Philip Hellstrom-Bangs is ruled out due to illness, with Jordan Jenkins coming in to guest.
Foxes manager Chris Adams said: “We’ve been doing well on the road, and we’ve just been unfortunate that we’ve had bad luck from the start of the year.
“But we’ll certainly look forward to going back to Foxhall, and let’s hope we can come away with a win from there.”
Foxes fans can watch all the action from Foxhall on the live stream at https://witchestv.co.uk/
Teams
Ipswich: Tom Brennan, Danny King, Richard Lawson, Scott Nicholls, Tobiasz Musielak, Jordan Jenkins, Jason Edwards.
Northampton Foxes: Jaimon Lidsey, Troy Batchelor, Jonas Jeppesen R/R, Chris Harris, Nicolai Klindt, Kye Thomson, Luke Harrison.