Raiders coach David Furner was forced into a reshuffle of his pack yesterday, due to the unavailability of injured back-rowers Trevor Thurling (ankle) and Nigel Plum (ribs).Josh Miller will start the game at lock, with captain Alan Tongue moving to hooker and Stuart Flanagan to the bench.

Thompson trained with the Raiders yesterday, while fellow front-rower Dane Tilse flew to Brisbane to make his return from an ankle injury with Queensland Cup side Souths Logan today.

Fensom will become the third player from last year's Toyota Cup premiership team to make his Raiders debut in the past month.Furner was confident Fensom would follow in the footsteps of impressive debutants Josh Dugan, Jarrod Croker and Travis Waddell.''I'm pretty excited for the kid, he's had some very strong performances for Souths Logan in the QCup, which is playing against NRL players,'' Furner said.

''He's handled himself quite well and I know he's excited.''The Sharks are also going into the game with a depleted line-up, after captain Paul Gallen, winger Misi Taulapapa and prop Kade Snowden were all suspended during the week.The home team is also without prop Ben Ross (neck) and fullback Brett Kearney (knee), who have been ruled out for the season.Furner said the Sharks still had plenty of power, despite being without so many key men.

''They're going to be a gritty side,'' he said.

''They've still got enough there with Anthony Tupou and Reni Maitua to be able to cause us problems in defence.

''You've also got the return of Trent Barrett, who organises a lot of their plays ... they've still got a lot of strike there.''