ALUN Rossiter admitted he did hold talks with Patrick Hougaard before the Dane sealed a move to Leicester, but the Robins boss is remaining calm as he works to try and fill his two remaining team spots.

Hougaard will join Robins assets Jason Doyle and Mads Korneliussen at Beaumont Park for 2014, although Rossiter did have designs on bringing the former Peterborough rider to Blunsdon.

While with the Panthers Hougaard rocketed from reserve into the main body of the Showground team, but Rossiter was unable to work around his prior commitments in the Swedish second division which runs on the Robins’ Thursday race night.

“I’m close friends with Brian Karger who I know is close friends with Patrick, and I’ve had my tabs on for a little while,” he said.

“When I came back to Swindon for 2012 I looked at him then and I was interested but it just didn’t happen.

“You get the impression sometimes that riders stagnate if they stay in one place for too long, although they have the ability, and I think that’s what happened to him at Belle Vue. That’s nothing against Belle Vue, just that a fresh challenge can help.

“He did that at Peterborough and he had a really good season. We had early talks but Sweden was a problem because he has a deal over there which sees him ride on a Thursday, which is obviously when we ride at home.”

Following the signings of Peter Kildemand, Troy Batchelor and Nick Morris, Rossiter has 9.64 left of his 32 point team building limit to complete his top five, but the Robins boss isn’t going to be rushed into anything.

“We’ll have to wait and see now but I’m not going to rush because it needs to be right,” he said.

“We will look at all the options out there to make sure we get the best riders for us.”

Meanwhile, Steve Worrall, who will ride at reserve for the Robins next season, has agreed a deal to ride for the newly renamed Cradley Heathens in the National League.

“I’d say every single rider at this level wants to be riding there because there is nowhere else with the track, the set-up and the fans like they’ve got,” he said.

“Every week you know you’ll have however many hundreds of fans going crazy in the background which every rider wants, and I’m really happy I’ll be part of that next year.”