Wolves must show their mettle against Steel City

The Steel City side have put together one of the most strongly fancied teams for glory this year including new Grand Prix star Jack Holder and British Champion Adam Ellis.

It’s a tasty start to the League Cup group for Parrys International Wolves with club owner Chris Van Straaten excited by the prospect of a visit from the Tigers.

“They’ve put together a really good team,” he said. “It’s going to be a tough meeting for us but we’re happy with the team we have put together.”

Van Straaten and boss Pete Adams have made only two changes to last season with Steve Worrall and Drew Kemp joining the club.

And in an ironic twist, Van Straaten says the retirement of Rory Schlein actually made life easier for team building plans.

He said: “Whilst Rory retiring and going back to Australia was very disappointing and sad to see it did actually help us in the strangest of ways. It meant we could keep hold of the other riders we wanted to and we weren’t faced with an extra difficult decision.

“I preach loyalty and more often than not because of that, I get it in return. Getting five of the riders back on board was relatively straightforward and here at Wolverhampton we do like to keep a certain amount of continuity going.

“I think we’ve got a really solid top five whose points alone I’d like to think could get us over the line most times and then anything those young lads come up with will be a nice little bonus.”

Schlein has been replaced by former Belle Vue man Worrall and talented British youngster Kemp comes in for Broc Nicol in the only other team change.

Wolves are in a League group with Sheffield and Belle Vue with the winner facing the other group leaders between Ipswich, Peterborough and King’s Lynn.

WOLVERHAMPTON: Sam Masters, Luke Becker, Nick Morris, Ryan Douglas, Steve Worrall, Drew Kemp, Leon Flint.

SHEFFIELD: Jack Holder, Craig Cook, Tobiasz Musielak, Kyle Howarth, Adam Ellis, Stefan Nielsen, Connor Mountain.