SWINDON Robins have reaffirmed their commitment to skipper Jason Doyle by confirming the Australian will lead their side into the new-look SGB Premiership campaign in 2017.

The Blunsdon club have moved to dampen speculation about Doyle's place in next year's line-up following the rule changes agreed at last week's British speedway summit meeting.

The Robins already had an agreement in place with Doyle to ride for the next two seasons, which was confirmed before the end of the 2016 campaign.

But the new 50-point limit agreed by the sport's administrators, which also saw riders who only raced in the top flight in 2016 having their average increased by a factor of 1.4 to bring them in line with Premier League averages, had led to speculation about the Grand Prix ace's availability for the club.

Doyle has been handed a starting average of 13.41 after the revamp of British Speedway’s top two divisions but, despite it being a big chunk of the limit, Robins boss Alun Rossiter says the club are honouring their agreement with Doyle, who won three successive Grand Prix rounds this year before seeing his season ended by injury.

Rossiter said: “The presence of a rider like Doyley is infectious throughout the team, he’s a great guy to have around and we’re delighted to be honouring our agreement with him.

“I know there was a lot of speculation when the new average was announced – and I won’t pretend otherwise, it’s tough building a team around that – but we are making progress with riders.

“I must also repeat my view that I believe averages should be capped at 12. You can’t average more than 12 from four rides so that’s how it should be, but this is what was voted in and so we go with it.

“I know my team won’t please everyone but I am putting into place riders who can improve and who, I believe, will be good to work with – and to have one of the best riders in the world at Swindon has to be a good thing, and a good thing for British Speedway.”

Rossiter says his team building has significantly picked up in the wake of the annual general meeting.

He added: “I spent all day on Wednesday working on it, from 7am through to 11pm, on the phone and sending emails.

“I’ll be making announcements soon and I think we will surprise a few with the riders I have lined up.”