WITH second place in the Premier League table now secured as a result of their stunning 14 point away win at Peterborough on Saturday, the Somerset Rebels turn their attentions to Knockout Cup matters this weekend with the visit of the Rye House Rockets to the Oaktree Arena (Friday) - with the second leg at the Rockets Hoddesdon raceway just 24 hours later.

The previous four meetings this season between Somerset and Rye House would indicate that the tie is too close to call, with the aggregate scores over the course of those four matches standing 182-181 in Somerset’s favour.

But since the teams last met back at the beginning of June, they have both made changes to their respective line-ups with Rasmus Jensen and Ollie Greenwood having joined the Rebels while Rye House have signed Robert Lambert following his recent release by Peterborough.

Somerset will be without broken collar-bone victim, Ollie Greenwood and will use Berwick’s Fernando Garcia as a guest replacement for the unfortunate Rebels reserve.

Rebels team manager Garry May said:

“Of course we’ll be looking to build up as big a lead as possible with which to take with us into the second leg, but I never set targets in situations such as this as I think you can be focussing too much on that rather than what is actually happening throughout the match.

“So I’ve always taken the attitude that I’ll take whatever lead we get in any first leg as I have the faith in the team to be able to defend that lead, and that’ll be the way we’ll be going into Friday’s first leg against Rye House.

“With it being a cup semi-final tie, hopefully it’ll bring a good crowd to the Oaktree Arena, plus it’ll give the Somerset fans the chance to give Josh and Brady the accolades they deserve for their performances in the Riders’ Championship on Sunday.”