Rossiter blames 'lack of consistency' for Robins shortcomings

ALUN ROSSITER lamented a ‘lack of consistency’ has cost the Swindon Robins this season following the postponement of his sides last league meeting of the season at the Abbey Stadium last night. TotalSport Swindon’s Ryan Walker spoke to the team manager following the meeting.

Following six heats of racing heavy downpours led to Thursday’s meeting being abandoned. And when asked whether it was a case of safety that led to the decision being taken, Rossiter described the issues riders faced following the rain.

“I think tonight was a safety issue,” said Rossiter.

“Unfortunately all the rain did the damage and it was a very heavy shower.

“The content of the track has a lot of clay in it and when it’s like that things get slippery and abandoning the meet was the only option,” he added.

“I didn’t want to call it off because we were losing.

“If your winning then it’s easy to call a meeting off, but when you're losing it looks bad on our side.

“In fairness though both sets of teams didn’t want to ride and there can be no arguments,” he said.

Out of the playoffs left many wondering whether the Swindon riders wanted to race last night. But Rossiter insisted that all his riders were in the right mindset prior to racing.

“If the riders don’t score any points then they don’t get paid so the boys were all pumped up for tonight,” said Rossiter.

“I read with a great interest that nobody in the team is trying but I’m sure they all want to get paid.

“It really frustrates me when I listen to the rubbish a lot of people come out with,” he added.

A fantastic victory for the Belle Vue Aces over the Somerset Rebels booked the Manchester club their spot in the playoffs at the expense of Swindon. And when reflecting on the Aces televised victory, Rossiter admitted it was a great night of racing.

“It was a great meeting,” stated Rossiter.

“I thought Somerset gave it their all and you can’t ask for much else.

“At the end of the day the best team won and we only have ourselves to blame for not making the playoffs,” he said.

This season marks only the second time in the past five years that the Robins have missed out on the playoffs, and when questioned as to what went wrong for his Swindon side this season, Rossiter stated that a lack of consistency had been the key factor in his side's failure.

“Consistency has been the problem. It’s as simple as that,” said Rossiter.

“We’ve had a lack of it this season and there’s not much else to say.

“We’ve got a top five that we built with Zach [Wajtknecht] and we lost Mitchell [Davey] at the start of the year,” he added.

“There are not many riders we could bring in to replace him.

“Yes, we got a rider in last week who went out and got a paid win and then everyone starts questioning as to why didn’t we bring him in before,” said Rossiter.

“At the end of the day you don’t know what people are going to do and who’s going to score well,” added the team manager.

“What they have chucked at us at the AGM the last couple of years has made it hard.

“Jason Doyle last season was given a thirteen point average, and then this year two of our riders were over eight.

“It all escalates and then you end up having to fight battles all the time,” Said Rossiter