NEW Great Britain team boss Alun Rossiter has selected his first team to race against a Rest of the World side in the Ben Fund Bonanza at Leicester on Sunday, March 9.

The side will be led by Rossiter’s new captain, Tai Woffinden, and includes Lewis Bridger, Chris Harris, Danny King, Craig Cook, Kyle Howarth, Ritchie Worrall. Ben Barker is the meeting reserve.

Robins boss Rossiter stressed the door isn’t closed to any rider not selected for what will be the first meeting of the 2014 season but insisted it will be a useful exercise for a good cause.

“Managing Great Britain, of course it has always been an ambition of mine, progressing from riding, team managing, representing your country at the highest level is always a feather in anyone’s cap,” he said.

“There’s a lot of negativity around, too much negativity in my eyes because we’re not as bad as people make us out to be. We just need to be a little bit more upbeat about ourselves, a bit more positive.

“I like to be upbeat otherwise there is no point in doing it. I’ve got to sit down with the chairman, we’ve already spoken a bit, but I want to discuss what we can do. I want to do something as a team but I need to know what the boundaries are, what we can and can’t do.

“I’ve given Tai the captaincy, I just thought that Bomber didn’t have the best of seasons last year and so I’ve taken the pressure off him to let him focus on himself a little bit. He’s back in the Grand Prix and now he can worry about getting himself in the right frame of mind instead of worrying about everybody else.

“I’ve not been to Leicester so the Ben Fund meeting will be a new experience for me and I’ve heard good things about it. I think the team we will be tracking has potential, it has a bit of youth and a bit of experience, and an important thing to say is that the door isn’t shut to anybody else.

“This is my first official fixture and I want to stress that I’m not excluding anyone. “