Unlucky King's Lynn Stars will be up against it again tonight when they travel to Dorset to face the Poole Pirates.

For the sixth meeting in a row Rob Lyon will be unable to field a full-strength side thanks to the club's on-going run of absences and injuries.

David Howe is riding for Premier League Scunthorpe this evening so misses out while Mads Korneliussen's torrid campaign took a serious turn for the worst on Friday.

Lynn's captain, who has been forced to withdraw from the last two meetings with Poole because of nasty accidents, took another spill in the first leg of the Danish final – which was one by Lynn's reigning champion Niels-Kristian Iversen. He is set to be out for four to six weeks, at best, after sustaining a broken shoulder blade and a fractured vertebrae in the incident.

Lyon, whose depleted side have lost their last three meetings, said: 'Under normal circumstances we'd be looking to get things back on track, but it is difficult as we're not going to have a full side again.

'We'll go into it like every meeting though with the full intention of winning it. Realistically, we'll have to try and get what we can and we'll certainly be looking to get at least a point. They've got some question marks over the fitness of some of their riders too. 'We're looking to kick-start our campaign after a promising start and hopefully we can start doing that – especially once we've got a full squad. As always, there's a lot of rumours around on social media about various riders that we are now trying to sign and loads of names are flying about.

'All I can say it it's something we are working on, it's not easy, but we're working really hard to achieve what we're after.'

Guest rider, Swindon's Eddie Kennett, will take Korneliussen's place in Lynn's line-up for the clash in front of the Sky Sports cameras at Wimborne Road.

The Stars will operate rider-replacement in experienced Brit Howe's absence. In better news, Swede Seb Alden and reserve Simon Stead will both make their return against the Pirates.

Alden was withdrawn from the Stars' last fixture, a 50-39 home loss to Poole, after hurting his neck while Stead has missed five of Lynn's last six meetings through a variety of fitness problems.

Poole (from): Chris Holder (capt), Maciej Janowski, Tomas H Jonasson, Robert Miskowiak, Przemyslaw Pawlicki, Dawid Stachyra, Rohan Tungate

Lynn: 1 Niels-Kristian Iversen, 2 Rider/replacement, 3 Edward Kennett (guest), 4 Seb Alden, 5 Rory Schlein, 6 Richie Worrall, 7 Simon Stead