World Cup winner Ryan Sullivan roars into Arlington Stadium tomorrow night.

Flying Ryan is speedway's man of the moment, having led Australia to victory last weekend and shot to the top of the world championship rankings with back-to-back wins in the British and Slovenian Grand Prix meetings.

Now he is in town with Peterborough Panthers in the dress rehearsal for next month's Elite League Cup final against the double-chasing Eastbourne Eagles.

Sullivan is in the vanguard of what many people believe is going to be the year of the Kangaroo.

The three-times Australian champion from Melbourne won the last-heat decider, his third victory in a row, to clinch the World Cup.

That gave Sullivan a 17-point haul in the final and followed another top-scoring display in the previous round when he finished with 15 points.

Amazingly, Australia has not had an individual world champion since Jack Young 50 years ago, but the 27-year-old Sullivan could be the rider to end the sequence.

He is currently in pole position with reigning title-holder Tony Rickardsson with four of the ten Grand Prix events remaining, and the final meeting is being staged in Sydney at the end of September.

That is then. Now is now, and Sullivan looms as the latest threat to Eastbourne's own ambitions on the domestic front.

Apart from one season when Peterborough dropped out of the top flight, Sullivan has been an ever-present with Panthers since he made his British debut in 1994.

A superb gater who also wins races from the back, he is the club's all-time record points scorer and led them to the league championship three years ago and the cup in 1999 and 2001.

Although he has won the Overseas and Inter-Continental titles in the past and finished fourth in the world last year, it is only in the last couple of months that Sullivan has emerged as potentially the best in the business.

And all this against the backdrop of a row which threatened to embroil Sullivan and undermine Peterborough's bid for a place in the league play-offs.

The bust-up led to the resignation of co-promoter and team manager Jim Lynch, while Sullivan was replaced as captain by fellow Aussie Shane Parker.

When the dust had settled, new boss Phil Wing paid tribute to Sullivan after seeing him produce a string of spectacular performances for the club.

He said: "Ryan has conducted himself in a professional manner. He has pledged his support to the club, and I'm confident we can get over what has been a nasty situation."

All of which means Eagles have to try to stop Sullivan in his tracks at Arlington tomorrow night as the teams begin the sparring for the cup final in five weeks' time.

Said Eastbourne boss Jon Cook: "Sullivan is in unbelievable form at the moment."

Panthers have a ten-point lead in the race for the bonus point after winning the reverse fixture 50-40 at Peterborough in May.

Eagles will be without the injured Dean Barker and Toni Svab, who are replaced by Jeremy Doncaster and Brent Werner, while Stefan Andersson and Peterborough's Magnus Zetterstrom are riding in the Swedish championship.

Tomorrow's Teams.

Eastbourne: Mark Loram, rider replacement, Joe Screen, David Norris, Jeremy Doncaster, Savalas Clouting, Brent Werner.

Peterborough: (from) Ryan Sullivan, Shane Parker, Sam Tesar, rider replacement, Piotr Protasiewicz, Hans Clausen, Chris Harris, Simon Stead, Oliver Allen.

The start is at 7.30.