The Australian places were allocated on clearl criteria published prior to Australian Championship.
Top 2 in Aussie Champ (Kurtz and J Holder) + Oceanic Champ (Tungate)
C Holder [3rd in Aussie Champ] replaced injured Brady Kurtz in a late change
My preferred source currently shows heavy rain on Friday night. Obviously some cause for concern. However I'm not going to pretend I have a greater insight than anyone else.
Would be a good time to suggest that Sam Masters try and pick up as many bonus points as possible [I'd be tempted to move him to 3 or 4 and put Dougy at 5]
On my preferred forecaster it's the other way round
https://www.yr.no/en/forecast/daily-table/2-2643123/United Kingdom/England/Manchester/Manchester
Either way there is clearly a genuine threat of rain.
We also know that Belle Vue drains well and that Phil Morris will pull out all the stops to make it happen (cf last year's SON2)
Not sure about that. They beat a strong Belle Vue team last year [also 47-43 after a last heat 5-1] and replaced their no 1 in that match (Milik) with Freddie Lindgren and still came bottom by a country mile.
And Dudek came 9th in the Polish Golden Helmet from which their three nominations qualified.
[P.S. Poland get 3 slots - same as Italy, and LESS than Germany!]