JOE Hughes is daring to dream that he’s on the path to ruling Britannia and that could see him renew hostilities with an old foe.

Tomorrow night, Hughes (14-1) steps into the ring for the most high-profile clash of his career to date as he takes on Lancashire man Jack Catterall (14-0), with the Malmesbury fighter’s English super-lightweight title and his opponent’s WBO inter-continental belt up for grabs in a winner-takes-all clash.

But the biggest carrot remains a shot at the British title and should Hughes hand Catterall, who is also ranked fourth in the world by the WBO, a first defeat in front of his home fans at Bolton Wanderers’ Macron Stadium, the 25-year-old could well be on his way to a meeting with former amateur rival Tyrone Nurse – the current incumbent of the Lonsdale strap.

Just 15 days after Hughes and Catterall meet in their final eliminator, 26-year-old Nurse (32-2-1) defends the British belt against Willie Limond in Glasgow and Wiltshire’s English champion can still remember suffering a controversial defeat at the hands of Nurse when the two competed as youngsters.

“We fought in a junior ABA national semi-final – I think I was only about 16 at the time,” said Hughes.

“I thought that I won the first two rounds but I was only two or three points up, and then somehow, they gave the third round to him 7-0.

“It was an even round and I’m not being big-headed but I don’t think that there was anyone in the world at that level that could beat me 7-0 at that time.

“I remember that even though it happened in Bristol, there were no qualified local judges available that day, so I didn’t get any sort of advantage because I was quite local and I couldn’t believe that they scored it 7-0.

“It wasn’t the biggest robbery in the world, but I thought I won the fight.

“I think he only went on to have one more amateur fight after that before going pro and he’s had a lot of fights since then.

“It’s nice that we’ve both gone on to do well and it would be great for me if I could go on to fight Tyrone for the British title – that means that things have gone well for me against Catterall.

“That British title is probably the biggest thing for me out of all this. It’s not necessarily about fighting Tyrone, but that would be a nice thing to do.”