As the premiers juggle a wealth of backrow talent and look to plug a hole in the midfield, Collins will slot back in at inside centre.

Two from two, Pirates know Saturday will be their biggest test so far with the Bulls fresh from a 45-15 win over arch-rivals Narrabri.

Pirates coach Mat Kelly wasn’t surprised by the result but was a bit the scoreline and is anticipating a “very hard game”.

The Bulls will present a different proposition to what they have in the past, more so for the fact that there are so many unfamiliar faces.

Many of those feature in the backline, and Kelly highlighted their backline defence as a key for Pirates.

“They’ve got a fairly handy backline from all reports,” he said.

The Blue Boars can attest to that with backs scoring all six of Bulls’ tries.

That’s not the reason Collins has been shifted to the backs, but he will “stiffen up the defence”, Kelly said.

“We’ve got a few (centres) away,” he said. Damian Reti, Mitch Bath and Anthony Barbara are all unavailable.

Collins is too no stranger to the role, and as acquitted himself well there in the past.

Brendan Rixon pushes out to outside centre, which is the position they are actually looking to cover.

“13 is the hardest place to defend and Ricko has played there plenty of times before,” Kelly said.

Kelly said they also have to get their set pieces right. 

So much of their momentum they derive from their scrum and lineout.

It has been a bit of a scratchy start to the season.

“We haven’t been really happy with how we’ve performed yet,” Kelly said.

“(But) Being round three there is plenty of time to work on things.”

While happy with the performance against the Blue Boars, Bulls coach Dave Silversides said they weren’t getting “too excited”.

“There’s lots of areas for improvement,” he said.

Likewise for them Saturday will be their toughest assignment.

“We’re conscious of the fact that Pirates are the benchmark,” he said.

“(But) we’re looking forward to the challenge.”

One of the most encouraging aspects of the performance against Narrabri was the way they were able to maintain field position and pressure. They’ll need to do that again on Saturday and really compete in the set pieces.

“Pirates base their game on forward dominance and they utilise their set piece to set that,” Silversides said.

In other games Inverell host Walcha, Tamworth travel to Gunnedah, Scone is at home to Barraba, and Narrabri and Quirindi play for the Nick Tooth Memorial Shield at Narrabri.