Player of the grand final Tim O’Brien will make his first appearance for the champs this season after coming out of retirement to help them out, with a few backrowers sitting on the sidelines.

It will be a big coup as they push towards back to back premierships.

“Just the leadership and direction he adds,” Blue Boars coach Hunter Harley said.

Then there’s his presence over the ball.

“It’s comforting to know we’re not going to turn first phase ball over with him there,” he said.

He’ll slot straight back into number seven and is one of a few changes.

Sam Clements shifts to number eight with Mike Boyle overseas, and Henri Knight back out to the centres with skipper Matt Schwager returning from his Country commitments.

Harley pointed to attitude as being the key for them.

“If we don’t have the right attitude Gunnedah will roll us,” he said.

“They beat Pirates and Walcha and both those teams gave us a scare.”

It’s a matter of going out and executing their plays and working to where they want to get to on the field.

He’ll also be looking for a better first half from them.

Their first 40 against Pirates was some of the worst football they’ve played.

Not that Harley is too worried. He felt last week was an isolated case.

They accounted for the Red Devils fairly easily when the sides met a month ago and, after last week’s narrow escape, Red Devils co-coach Tim Walsh is expecting the competition leaders to be up for a big game.

“They’ll probably be pretty pumped up,” he said.

He said they played “pretty badly” against them last time and need to be better “at all sorts of stuff”.

For starters, they’ve got to cut out the mistakes.

“I’d say we would have had less ball than the NSW State Of Origin side (on Wednesday night),” Walsh said.

“And our defence was dreadful in the midfield. We let Mitch Kelly cut us to shreds.”

Their lineout was also deplorable.

All of those things added up to a pretty comprehensive defeat.

The breakdown has been a big focus leading in. They’ve been a bit too passive there.

“We’ve worked on being a bit more aggressive at the breakdown,” Walsh said.

“We’re getting blown off the ball.”

That’s then meant they’ve either lost the ball or been penalised trying to get it back.

He also spoke about needing to start well, adding that he’s sick of having to say that.

Their cause hasn’t been helped by injuries, with Peter Henderson and Keegan Loughrey withdrawing within 10 minutes of each other on Thursday, leaving Walsh with shuffling to do in the backline.