South Sydney winger Nathan Merritt has declared himself a certain starter ahead of Saturday's preliminary final blockbuster against the Bulldogs at ANZ Stadium.
Merritt was a late scratching from last week's 38-16 victory over Canberra with a shoulder injury.
But the try-scoring freak will play his 200th NRL game this weekend as the Rabbitohs look to advance to their first grand final in 41 years.
"I'll be definitely playing, no doubt about that," Merritt said.
"I'm pretty close to 100 percent so I'm ready to go.
"No excuses, my shoulder's fine now. We've had an extra week so that's made my shoulder a lot stronger and I'm ready to go."
Merritt admits it was a difficult decision to withdraw from the Raiders clash but thanked his team-mates for extending the season for at least one more week.
"It was a pretty tough call, it was a last-minute call made at training," he said.
"I trained most of the session but I didn't feel too comfortable. It was a tough call but the perfect call for the team - I have to worry about the team before myself.
"I didn't feeling comfortable taking a knock there but I'm just glad the boys got the win, it gave me another seven days to prepare my shoulder for this week's game so I'm ready to go this week and looking forward to the game."
When asked if he will need an injection to get through the Bulldogs clash, he said: "I'll see what happens on game day, if I don't feel too comfortable I'll maybe get a needle but the shoulder's feeling good at the moment so we'll see how it goes."
Saturday's blockbuster will be Merritt's second NRL final in his 11-year NRL career.
His only other post-season foray was the 24-6 loss to Melbourne a fortnight ago.
"It's a massive game for us this week but all we can do is try and control what we're doing today," the South Sydney local junior said.
"Preparation's the main key this week. We know we've got an in-form Doggies side (against us), they've been the benchmark all year so the only thing we can worry about is going out there and doing our jobs and stick to the game plan.
"I'm just living the dream but we can't look too far ahead of this week's game."