WEYMOUTH Wildcats make a long-awaited return to action in the Michael Richardson Trophy at the Isle of Wight’s Smallbrook Stadium in Ryde tonight (7pm).

Wildcats will contest the triangular tournament, with two meetings to come in July and August, alongside fellow nomadic club Cradley Heathens and hosts Isle of Wight Warriors.

And Wildcats have been able to secure the services of young star George Congreve after the unfortunate demise of Newcastle this week.

Ben Trigger also steps in for the unavailable Paul Bowen, joining Jacob Clouting and Henry Atkins in a strong line-up for the ‘Cats.

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Weymouth have not raced competitively since the pandemic began and have been banned from league action due to their nomadic status.

It means invitational tournaments such as these are vital for the club’s existence, and co-promoter James Tresadern welcomed the chance to take to the shale.

He told Echosport: “There’s three teams and three meetings, so points will accumulate.

“The winner of the three meetings with the most points, wins the tournament – it’s easy enough.

“It’s something that we weren’t involved in last year. That’s the thing with Barry (Bishop) and Martin (Widman) at the Isle of Wight.

“They give us nomadic teams so much help and offer us all these meetings, it’s unbelievable what they do.”

Discussing his riders, Tresadern said: “We’ve got Henry who we’ve known since me and Martin (Peters, co-promoter) started this project in 2015. We go back a long time with Henry.

“Jacob obviously rode for us in the MSDL (Midland & Southern Development League) in 2019 when we were in Poole. We’re still on great terms with Jacob.

“We’ve all got strong line-ups, we looked at several riders and it was either Cradley had signed them up or the Isle of Wight had.

“We wanted to try and stay on an even pool. We’ve all got a points limit but we didn’t want to have two really good riders and then two less good riders.

“We wanted to try and average it all out and I think that’s what we’ve done.”

The following two meetings take place on Thursday, July 28 and Thursday, August 18.