ALUN Rossiter’s team GB captain Tai Woffinden wants his teammates to ‘lay down a marker’ to the rest of the sides in this year’s Speedway of Nations by winning Race Off Two at the National Speedway Stadium on Saturday.

The Swindon Robins team boss, who doubles up as the home nations manager, selected the current world champion alongside Craig Cook and under-21 reserve Robert Lambert to take on Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Latvia and USA in Manchester, with three teams progressing to the final in July.

Rossiter’s captain was in a bullish mood ahead of the event and is seeking a repeat of last year’s group-stage victory.

Speaking to speedway Great Britain’s website, Woffinden said: “We’ve got a pretty tough round, obviously Denmark and the Aussies look pretty strong, but there’s some other good teams out there and we know it’s going to be hard.

“Last year, we put in a pretty good performance at Belle Vue and we’re looking to do the same again.

“We want to win our round and lay down a bit of a marker to the other countries and head to Russia with a big result.

“We’ve got a strong team again, Cookie (Craig Cook) knows Manchester inside out and Robert Lambert is improving all the time.

“We want to go one further than last year.”