CHRIS LAKEY King's Lynn hope to make a long-awaited re-appearance at the Norfolk Arena tonight to begin the home defence of their Premier League crown.The Stars take on the Newport Wasps - weather permitting - after a run of seven away fixtures which has yielded an incredible five wins and a draw.

CHRIS LAKEY

King's Lynn hope to make a long-awaited re-appearance at the Norfolk Arena tonight to begin the home defence of their Premier League crown.

The Stars take on the Newport Wasps - weather permitting - after a run of seven away fixtures which has yielded an incredible five wins and a draw. But team boss Rob Lyon insists Lynn won't rest on their laurels when they face the perennial strugglers from south Wales tonight - even though he's expecting a victory.

“Newport are a strange team - on their day they are capable of going anywhere and getting a result, but on another day they might just go and get 20 points,” said Lyon. “But we will treat them with respect. Yes, I do believe we will go out and win, but it doesn't mean we will be complacent. We have a job to do, a professional job, and we will go out and do it.”

Lynn are nicely positioned in the top half of the table, despite the string of home postponements, and Lyon believes the intensive planning that went into this season's team building is bringing its rewards.

“We were the first team to name our line-up and some people thought we were hasty,” he said. “But we had been working on it 24 hours a day, solid. A lot of time and effort went into it, we didn't just throw a team together.

“I think a lot of people thought it wasn't a very exciting team and on paper they might be right, but we looked at the new race formula (the top two riders in averages must be numbers one and three) and we could see that with a solid team we would pick up a lot of points.

“If we'd put in Troy Batchelor and put in a couple of three-pointers it would have been exciting, but I don't think it would have worked because your three-pointers are a gamble. If the gamble comes off, then fine, but invariably it won't happen. We banked on the likes of Chris Mills and Trevor Harding improving, and they have.”

While Newport have won three out of four at home, they have lost all seven on the road. The Wasps also boast the services of Chris Schramm, Phil Morris and Australian newcomer, Tom Hedley, who is good friends with ex-Stars favourite Kevin Doolan.

Simon Lambert will be guesting at reserve for the Wasps against his parent club - while Lynn's new reserve, Grant MacDonald, finally gets to make his home debut. Lynn also face local rivals Rye House Rockets - the only team to beat them in the league this season - at home on Friday.

Stars: 1 Tomas Topinka, 2 Chris Mills, 3 Daniel Nermark, 4 Trevor Harding, 5 Paul Lee, 6 James Brundle, 7 Grant Macdonald.

Wasps: 1 Nick Simmons, 2 Tom Hedley, 3 Phil Morris, 4 Tony Atkin, 5 Chris Schramm, 6 Michal Rajowski, 7 Simon Lambert.

t Speedway author Jeff Scott will be signings copies of his new book, 'Shale Britannia - A sideways glance at speedway' before tonight's meeting. The book, containing 245 photographs from every track in the country, is available priced £15.