IPSWICH ‘Sackers’ Witches face their final home Premier League meeting of the season tonight, with their play-off hopes seriously in the balance.

IPSWICH ‘Sackers’ Witches face their final home Premier League meeting of the season tonight, with their play-off hopes seriously in the balance.

The Witches entertain Newcastle at Foxhall this evening and travel to Berwick on Saturday in their final PL fixture – and seven points from those two meetings are likely to be required to put Edinburgh under pressure for the final play-off place.

Ipswich currently lead the Scottish side by a point, but the Monarchs have three meetings in hand on Ipswich, including a double-header on Friday.

“We need to get maximum points from Newcastle and Berwick,” said Witches boss Pete Simmons.

“Newcastle will be tough, but we can beat them and we need to do what we did to Berwick in the KO Cup earlier in the season when we won well.

“It’s not going to be easy to make the play-offs, but the least we must do is put Edinburgh under a bit of pressure.”

If the Witches don’t make the play-offs, they will look back at three home defeats earlier in the season as the cause.

Tonight the Witches will use Byron Bekker from Dudley, as guest for the injured Cameron Heeps, while Newcastle have Ludvig Lindgren racing in Sweden for his Swedish team Rospiggarna in the play-offs.

They will use rider replacement for him, while Michael Palm Toft comes in as a guest for broken leg victim Richie Worrall.

The Witches still have two Cup semi-finals to come against Workington in the League Cup and Edinburgh in the KO Cup.

Tonight’s teams

Ipswich: L Lanham, D North, T Poole, M Risager, R Tungate, M Tresarrieu, B Bekker.

Newcastle: S Robson, R/R, M Palm-Toft, 4 C Henry, 5 M Lemon, 6 P Starke, 7 C Nedermark.