SWINDON Robins rider Nick Morris has revealed he had doubts about his future in speedway in the wake of best friend Darcy Ward’s horror crash last year - but has promised to ride in his honour in 2016.

Ward was left with life-changing spinal injuries after a fall while riding in Poland last August, little over a month after joining fellow Australian and best friend Morris on the Robins roster.

Still only 21, Morris was left distraught by Ward’s accident and was understandably unable to recapture his very best form in the closing weeks of the 2015 season.

But on the eve of the new Elite League campaign, Morris has made peace with what happened and will ride to do Ward proud whenever he is on track this year.

“For sure it affected me. Darcy’s my best mate and to see him getting paralysed, I didn’t feel like racing after that,” said Morris.

“It made it hard for everyone and the whole speedway world was struggling with that.

“We’ve passed that now, I’ve seen Darcy, I’ve hung out with him in Australia and he wants me to do good and I want to do good too.

“I am going to race for him and race for myself and keep moving on.

“It was playing on my mind. It wasn’t that I was worried about it happening to me, it was just hard to take.

“It’s happened and life goes on. We’re going to have a good year this year and keep improving.”

Another Australian, Jason Doyle, has been signed by Swindon team manager Alun Rossiter to fill Ward’s role as Robins number one and Morris thinks he is more than up to the challenge.

“It’s going to be awesome. It’s always good having an out-and-out number one as Darcy showed last year,” said Morris.

“Doyley has really been on it in the GPs and all the leagues last year, it’s going to be good to have him as number one.”