World-Cup winner Niels-Kristian Iversen returns to King's Lynn duty tonight as the Stars welcome Eastbourne Eagles to the Norfolk Arena.

Lynn's golden boy, who lifted his third Speedway World Cup with Denmark at the weekend, has been in sensational form for Rob Lyon's side this season.

And as the Stars prepare to kick-start their play-off push this evening, Iversen's captain Mads Korneliussen insists Lynn's riders need to take some pressure off their red-hot number one's shoulders.

'Winning the World Cup again will only motivate Niels even more because he's in the form of his life,' said Kornelissen.

'I'm sure he can keep it up and keep scoring points but as a team we really need to support him. I think he's ridden in every heat 15 this season and that's not good enough. We all need to score more points and maybe let him have a bit of a break now and again.

'It's not fair on him to keep going out and getting maximums and keeping us in meetings because of his massive scores. We all need to pull our weight – we can't just rely on Niels.'

Lynn hammered Eastbourne 59-31 on the opening day of the season but lost the return meeting by eight points. Lyon's charges sit fifth in the Elite League, one place and five points behind the Eagles who sit in the last play-off place.

The Stars have won their last three home meetings but will be without World Under-21 champion Maciej 'Magic' Janowski who is riding in the Polish Under-21 Championship. Rider/replacement will be in operation for him. New signing Ulrich Ostergaard is set to make his Stars debut at reserve in place of the recently-released Joe Screen.

Korneliussen said: 'Number six is the perfect position for Ulrich. I think he'll do really well at reserve. He has had some great scores around Lynn and I think he'll do really well at home.

'Missing Magic is a blow because it's going to be a tough meeting. Eastbourne have some really good riders but they are inconsistent so it depends what side turns up.

'We travel to Swindon tomorrow so if we get four points out of both of these meetings we'd be delighted.'

Eastbourne welcome back Joonas Kylmakorpi for the first time since he crashed at the Norfolk Arena in the first heat of the season in March. Russian reserve Denis Gizatullin is missing for the visitors who will use Chris Schramm as a guest instead.

King's Lynn: 1 Niels-Kristian Iversen, 2 Mads Korneliussen, 3 Rider/replacement, 4 Kevin Wolbert, 5 Daniel Nermark, 6 Ulrich Ostergaard, 7 Mateusz Szczepaniak.

Eastbourne: 1 Joonas Kylmakorpi, 2 Lukas Dryml, 3 Simon Gustaffson, 4 Cameron Woodward, 5 Lewis Bridger, 6 Chris Schramm (guest), 7 Timo Lahti.

Gates open 6.30pm. Racing starts 7.45