Melbourne's plans to continue their long dominance over Newcastle have been boosted with first-choice centre Reimis Smith cleared for Sunday's NRL clash.
Smith was in doubt for the McDonald Jones Stadium match after he was hit high midway through the first-half of the Storm's 70-10 romp over the Warriors and subsequently failed his HIA.
He is good to go now but the same cannot be said about the Knights, who are battling a swag of injuries including star recruit Dane Gagai (fractured cheekbone).
Simi Sasagi will get his first start in the centres as Gagai's replacement.
"Reimis hasn't done any training until today," Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy said on Saturday.
"He had to go through all the HIA protocols ... I think the main reason he came off was that he had the double vision, I'm not quite sure it was concussion but we had to take the safe way.
"He's been pretty bright all week and he trained good today so he should be right to go."
He said his team had been on light duties following the emotional toll of playing the Anzac Day fixture, which draws their biggest home crowd of the year.
"We were very aware of that going into the game - on a Monday night, Anzac Day and the lead up to the game was a whole heap different but I think we handled it pretty well," the veteran coach said.
"We haven't done a lot of training this week but what we have done has been pretty sharp."
The Knights are coming off a demoralising 39-2 loss to Parramatta, with coach Adam O'Brien and co-captain Kalyn Ponga apologising post match for their performance.
The loss was their fifth straight this season, while the Storm have won their last 10 clashes.
But Bellamy expected O'Brien, a former Melbourne assistant, to get his team up and about for their visit.
"They've got a lot of good players in that team - we all know how good Kalyn is at fullback and there's the Saifiti brothers (Daniel and Jacob) and (David) Klemmer really gives them some good go forward and they've got some speed and punch on the their left edge as well in (Bradman) Best and (Edrick Lee)," Bellamy said.
"While they probably haven't played their best the last couple of weeks we're thinking they will be back to their best this week."
