HIS injury may not be as severe as he first feared but Nick Morris won’t have as much of a spring in his step as he’d like as he celebrates his 22nd birthday today.

The Swindon Robins rider is hobbling around on crutches after crashing out whilst attempting to glide past Patrick Hougaard and colliding with the air fence during his side’s 46-44 victory at the Leicester Lions on Saturday, damaging his ankle in the process.

Fortunately for the Australian, initial scans showed that he hadn’t suffered any broken bones but the Swindon man will be forced to play the waiting game to discover the full extent of his injury, with the Robins now on a hiatus until they host the Lakeside Hammers on June 16, a fixture for which it is too soon to say whether Morris will be fit enough to take part in.

“I was sliding and my leg hit the air fence, and straight away, I thought I’d broken it or broken my ankle – after a little while, I could move it a little,” said Morris, who is also signed to Polish side Sparta Wroclaw.

“When I had it scanned, all they really said was that there was no break. I’ll just have to wait a couple of weeks and see how it is, and if it doesn’t get any better in the next few days, I’ll have to have an MRI scan.

“I was going to go to Poland and do some practice to try and get in the team over there, but I won’t be doing that now.

“I can’t move it much now, so I’m just having to sit around doing nothing, which is a bit of a shame.”

One pick-me-up that may not be enough to nurse Morris to a quick recovery is team boss Alun Rossiter’s new secret weapon – his wife Julie’s banana cake.

After three defeats in the space of four days last week, Swindon got themselves back to winning ways at Leicester last weekend, with a special sweet treat playing its part.

“You can overcomplicate things by having a go and getting on to them, and it’s all too much – I just backed off (on Saturday),” said Rossiter.

“My wife cooked them all a nice banana cake. We called them in before the meeting for slice and said ‘look boys, let’s just get it right tonight’.

“They all enjoyed it and then we went on the track walk. We knew it was a poor track. There’s no passing, so we knew how important the starts were. Hopefully we start to cheer a few people up, instead of them being negative.”

Rohan Tungate missed the victory and is set for an MRI scan on his shoulder injury in Poland today.