Newcastle's unlikely finals campaign has reached a preliminary final against Penrith, despite the Knights finishing seventh during the regular season.
Wins over South Sydney and the Warriors in Auckland secured Justin Holbrook's team its first preliminary-final appearance since 2013.
Francis Manuleleua could be assigned to Nathan Cleary, whose availability remains uncertain because of "a stress-related bone issue" in his foot.
Cleary felt pain late in Penrith's 19-12 qualifying-final victory over the Sydney Roosters. Manuleleua previously played in the Panthers' lower grades.
"Cleary, he is obviously the one that leads their team and everything runs off him," said Manuleleua.
"I think if we can keep him quiet and force other players to pick up the slack, then that'll help us for this week."
Newcastle remain outsiders with Trey Mooney, Dylan Brown and Daniel Saifiti unavailable, but Fletcher Sharpe said the squad remained confident.
"That's been the mindset the last few weeks and to be honest we've been written off both games and for big parts of the year."
"Everyone within the four walls and this group's got great confidence in the footy and what that looks like."
"It'll be a good challenge, I know a few boys there so it'd be good to get one over them."