THE SOMERSET Rebels have made two riders changes, with Charles Wright and Lewis Rose replacing Stefan Nielsen and Simon Lambert in the reserve berths.

The changes will be effective from Somerset’s away leg of their KO Cup semi-final against Edinburgh on Friday night, with team manager Garry May feeling that the Rebels needed additional strength from the reserve positions as the club head into the Championship-deciding play-offs.

He said: “Our recent Northern Tour highlighted the fact that we are not scoring enough points from reserve away from home and that could be crucial when we go into the play-offs.

“The problem is that if the reserves aren’t scoring, then that puts additional pressure on the top five, and more especially the top three of Doyley, Nick and Josh to continually perform, as we saw in our recent match at Glasgow.

“At the Oaktree Arena the situation isn’t so much of an issue as we generally get good points from the reserve positions, but the Championship is going to be won or lost on what we can pick up away from home.

“It is never nice to tell riders that they are being replaced, and to be fair in many respects, especially here at the Oaktree Arena, Stefan hasn’t done a lot wrong for us this year, but I think that Charles (Wright) will give us a bit of extra scoring power from reserve away from home which could be crucial in the final reckoning and with the deadline for making any rider changes being Wednesday (August 28), we had to make a move now or else it would be not at all.

“Unfortunately the move a few weeks ago to bring Simon Lambert in for Tom Perry due to Tom’s being side-lined with a shoulder injury, from which he has still not fully recovered, hasn’t really worked out as we had hoped and having already used Lewis as a guest on a couple of occasions this season I think he is more than capable of picking up some points for us as well.

“We wish both Stefan and Simon well for the future and thank them for their efforts for the club in their time with us.”