CAPTAIN James Cockle has declared himself fit to ride in tomorrow night’s decisive National League play-off semi-final meeting.

Weymouth Doonan Wildcats host the Bournemouth Buccaneers for the second leg of their semi-final tie but must overturn a mammoth 33-point deficit if they are to grace the final for the second consecutive season.

Cockle has been suffering from a long-standing knee injury, which ultimately kept him out of last Sunday’s 52-43 National Trophy defeat at Buxton.

But the Wildcats’ skipper will return to action tomorrow, hoping to lead the Wessex Bus Raceway outfit to an astonishing comeback.

He said: “The knee is still giving me gyp but we’ve still got a couple of competitive meetings left and I want to see them out.

“I’ve had the problem for a while now so I’ll look to give it a proper rest over the winter as riding each week isn’t doing it a lot of good.”

Looking ahead to the visit of the Buccaneers, Cockle added: “No one’s expecting anything from us but you never know what can happen. We could pull something out of the blue and if we did it would make the victory that much better.

“As riders we want to win every race, we just need to pull our fingers out.”

Team-mate Terry Day insists he and his fellow Wildcats will give it their “best shot” in the hope of performing a minor miracle at the Wessex Bus Raceway.

The number two rider said: “You just don’t know what can happen but all we can do is give it our best shot.

“We’ve already lost to them at our track once so we don’t want to lose at home to them again.

“It’ll be hard but we can only try our best and hope that we turn it around. The biggest threat is Jay Herne as he knows our track so well.”

Jem Dicken’s Wildcats enter the clash on the back of five straight competitive defeats while the Buccaneers, who boast former Weymouth riders Jay Herne, Kyle Newman and Danny Warwick in their ranks, have won their last four meetings on the trot.

The two sides have already met on five occasions this year with the East Dorset side coming out on top in four and the Wildcats tasting success only the once.

The overall winner will take on Plymouth in the play-off final after the Devils secured a 98-89 aggregate victory over the Buxton Hitmen.