SHEFFIELD Tigers get their title defence underway tomorrow – and co-promoter Damien Bates feels they’ve given themselves the best chance possible to retain their crown.<\/p>\n
The Tigers head to Oxford for their ROWE Motor Oil Premiership opener on Thursday in their first league fixture since lifting the top-flight trophy last October.<\/p>\n
They track a familiar line-up led by Grand Prix duo Jack Holder and Tai Woffinden, and with former World Champion Chris Holder also included as third heat-leader.<\/p>\n
Bates said: \u201cIt\u2019s one of the easiest teams I\u2019ve ever managed to put together.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt was all done, sorted and sealed so early as well and I\u2019m more than happy with the seven riders we\u2019ve got at Sheffield again this year.<\/em><\/p>\n “With a top five like we’ve got, we\u2019ll always have a chance of winning meetings and that takes a bit of pressure off the two reserves but as we saw last year, they are already at a stage where they can score points at this level.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Words and Image by British Speedway<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SHEFFIELD Tigers get their title defence underway tomorrow – and co-promoter Damien Bates feels they’ve given themselves the best chance possible to retain their crown. The Tigers head to Oxford for their ROWE Motor Oil Premiership opener on Thursday in their first league fixture since lifting the top-flight trophy last October. They track a familiar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,52],"tags":[16,80],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british-speedway","category-speedway","category-the-premiership","tag-premiership","tag-sheffield-speedway"],"yoast_head":"\n