Gold Coast coach Justin Holbrook will give an NRL debut to tyro forward Iszac Fa'asuamaleaui as Melbourne get reinforcements and one piece of bad news ahead of Saturday's clash at Robina.
Both sides are coming off poor displays and both have been hit by injury, with Storm coach Craig Bellamy revealing that star prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona (knee) could be out for as many as 10 weeks instead of the six first thought.
"The scan showed it was worse than what they thought so it is probably going to be more like eight to 10 (weeks) so he is going to miss a fair spell," Bellamy said.
"That is unfortunate but we've got to move on."
The Titans' biggest loss is hooker Sam Verrills who played through a fractured collarbone in last week's 32-18 loss to St George Illawarra and may be facing surgery.
His place is taken by Chris Randall while Fa'asuamaleaui, the younger brother of captain Tino Fa'asuamaleaui, will play off the bench.
"Iszac is such a hard worker," Holbrook said.
His training ethic is better than anybody's and in the pre-season he has led every one of the testings as a middle forward so he is a super-fit guy,.
"The sort of (hot) conditions we are playing in will suit him."
When asked if Iszac "showed up" his Australian representative brother, Holbrook said "he does" in a sign that the Titans may have unearthed a gem.
"He has really great standards and he's had his own journey to get himself to the stage where he can play now," Holbrook said.
"It is terrific for him and exciting for us.
"I don't want to compare him to Tino. I think Tino is one of the best forwards in the game. Iszac is still learning his craft and coming through...but in terms of how hard they are going to try there isn't much difference."
The Storm welcome back centre Justin Olam, winger Xavier Coates and prop Tui Kamikamica from injury and straight into the starting lineup while veteran enforcer Tariq Sims has recovered from a calf complaint and will make his club debut in the NRL off the bench.
Bellamy said Kamikamica's return was a boost given the injury to star forward Asofa-Solomona.
"Nelson is a big loss obviously. We rely on him a lot," Bellamy said.
"Getting Tui back, he's a very reliable player and obviously a real benefit to us."
Bellamy said Sims hadn't trained much but backed him to fire.
"He's 33, he's played Origin and he's had a lot of training and games in his career so I'm sure it won't take him too long to find his niche," he said.
Bellamy said last week's 26-12 loss to Canterbury was "a pretty lazy performance" and that the team had addressed it during the week.
