Ipswich Witches’ fans and management are asking themselves how much more bad luck their team can suffer!

After the disappointment of losing Kyle Newman in his opening meeting of the season at Poole with a shoulder injury last month, the Suffolk side are now going to have to now cope without Nico Covatti for a period of time.

The Argentinian broke his wrist in a high-speed crash at Redcar last night and with the Witches fixture list still packed, Chris Louis’ side are down to the bare bones.

“No, it’s not good news for us,” Louis said.

“We will know more about the extent of Nico’s injury on Saturday after his operation. We’ve been working on some ideas since we saw the badly damaged wrist after the crash on Thursday.

“But for now we will have to wait and see.”

The Witches entertain Redcar at Foxhall Stadium tomorrow night (7.30), minus Covatti (they will use rider replacement), and will not want to slip up on their good home form.

“We want to keep our record at Foxhall intact, of course we do,” Louis said.

“We have a tough meeting at Newcastle on Sunday and if we can pick anything up from that, bearing in mind how we are at the moment, that would be a big bonus.”

The options for Louis and team boss Ritchie Hawkins are as limiting or as dramatic as they wish to make them.

They could go with rider replacement for a period of time, bearing in mind Covatti’s average means all the Witches can take one of his rides if necessary – including Danny King.

But rider replacement can be draining on a team, especially when riders would have to have five or six rides.

James Sarjeant’s loan with the team ends soon, but the Witches could extend that, or they could sign another rider to replace Covatti, knowing that Newman is almost back to racing again.

Then again and less likely, they could re-shuffle the side with more than one new signing, but that would be the least favoured option.

Back to tomorrow night however and the Suffolk side are also sweating on the fitness of Cameron Heeps.

He was sick throughout the meeting at Redcar and had to turn down a guest booking this evening.

“Cam isn’t at all well,” Louis said.

“Hopefully he will be good to go on Saturday night, but again, it’s far from ideal.”

The Witches will be letting children in for free at Foxhall tomorrow night and so far Saturday night has seen some bumper crowds in support of the Witches, who are three out of three at home.

Teams

Ipswich: D King, J Sarjeant, R/R, C Heeps, R Schlein, C Mountain, D Hume.

Redcar: J Garrity, C Garcia, C Wright, J Andersen, B Barker, R Hall, J Parkinson-Blackburn