Australia has made a change to its starting line-up ahead of the 2007 FIM Speedway World Cup final in Poland on Saturday night, with Dave Watt set to ride in place of Rory Schlein.
In what could only be descried as an agonising decision for Australian Team Manager Craig Boyce, Watt was given news of his selection after a brief practise session on Friday.
It was a change that was bound to be made, with Schlein unable to impress on the scoresheet at the Qualifier in Denmark and the Race-Off in Leszno.
While both riders were doing roughly the same lap times in practise, Boyce realised that he had no real option than to pick Watt in an attempt to gain more than six points from the team’s fifth rider.
Speaking moments after he handed the official team sheet to Race Officials, Boyce admitted that the decision was one of the toughest he has ever had to make.
“We made a team decision and both of the boys had a practise this morning,” he said.
“I guess Rory struggled a little bit last night, and both the boys were very equal on times within five hundredths of a second in practise just then.
“I think we are going to try Dave, give Dave a go, put Rory at number six and just give it our best.”
Boyce admitted that despite the difficulties of making such a hard decision, the final choice was made with Australia’s best chances at winning the World Cup at hand.
“It’s hard because Rory is really disappointed that I’ve taken him out, but like you said, Rory had six points last night and Dave should be able to at least equal that if not do a little bit better.
“It puts me in a tough situation with yesterday – Dave was moaning at me because he wasn’t in the team, and today I’ve got Rory moaning at me because he hasn’t been picked in the team.
“I’m just trying to do the best for Australia and Australian Speedway, and that’s just the way that the cookie crumbles.”
Australia has drawn the yellow helmet for tomorrow night’s final, and despite the notion that this is not ideal, Boyce said that the Aussies will certainly be racing as the team to watch out for.
“We are in the yellow helmet tomorrow which is quite opposite to what we had last night.
“It’ll be tough, but we get a lot of outside gates in the first half of the meeting and then we get a lot of inside ones in the latter stages.
“I’m not so sure that we got too much luck from the draw this time, but we’ll be there fighting.”
