Nova will be without former national league player Katie Robinson when they face what she described as "a great test" in unbeaten leaders Souths in Newcastle championship netball at National Park on Saturday.
The experienced midcourter and co-coach is unavailable and young gun Amali Fitzhenry, who also plays in the midcourt, is out after sustaining a season-ending knee injury. Nova will call up goalkeeper Amity Petersen and wing defence Sally Whatnall from their opens side.
Nova improved to 16 points with an eight-goal win over BNC Whanau (7) last round to be fourth and on equal footing with West Leagues Balance, who are third on percentages, but they are yet to beat any of the top-three sides.
"These are always the games that you play for," Robinson said. "We've got confidence and without that expectation of winning I think our younger players can just step up and relax and play some of the best netball they've got. I think they will benefit greatly from not feeling pressure to win."
Robinson said "footwork" was a focus leading into the round-eight match.
"The thing with Souths is their ball speed," she said. "The fact they can move that ball around so quickly makes it very difficult to intercept and to get a feel in the game. You have a turnover and the ball is down the other end as soon as you know it.
"Hopefully we can put our body in a better position to slow them up a little bit. I think that will be the biggest focus for us. If we can slow down their positioning then we might be able to slow down their ball movement."
Souths coach Tracey van Dal is expecting to have close to a full complement of players for "another intense game".
"Now that the first round has been and gone and we're undefeated, we're very aware that the target is on our back," van Dal said. "But that's great because that's pushing us even harder. It's pushing us to be a better team."
Lions are top of the table with 20 points. Second-placed University of Newcastle (18) play Inner Glow (14), West go up against Kotara South (10) and BNC take on Junction (8).
All games are at 2.30pm.
