It remains to be confirmed how long Maley will be out for, but he said he takes some solace from the fact Morris will slot straight into the halves in his place, while McAlpine has been named to make his return to the club in the centres.

"I've done the other one before and that wasn't too bad, six weeks or so, and this one actually feels better than that but there is definitely a tear in there so hopefully it's not too long a recovery," Maley said.

"It works out okay in a way because Steve Morris comes back from a hamstring niggle this week and he was probably going to be one of our halves moving forward anyway, so he'll slot in there with [Luke Petrie].

"And it's obviously really exciting to have [McAlpine] back."

McAlpine, a Group 10 and Group 9 player-of-the-year, returns to his junior club after spending the 2018 season with the Oberon Tigers, and Maley says he'll provide exactly what the green and golds were lacking last weekend.

"He's a genuine try-scorer," Maley said.

"I thought we executed pretty well last weekend with a pretty basic game-plan but we maybe lacked a little bit of flair in terms of finishing, we didn't chance our arm enough when we [had point-scoring opportunities].

"We scored one early and should've scored again before the 20-minute mark but didn't, St Pat's kicked a 40-20, swung momentum and then scored a few quick ones.

"Macca's a very creative player, for himself and the rest of the side, and I think that'll really help for us in terms of what we can work from last week.

"But there's a lot of positives to come from that too and we are only one game into the season. It was never going to come together perfectly straight away, as much as we want it to, so we'll keep working on those things."

There's never a lack of feeling in CYMS and Blayney's encounters because, as Maley put it, "outside Hawks these games are as close as we get to a local derby".

He went on to say he's expecting a fresh, firey Blayney outfit considering they've not taken the field since their round one loss to Bathurst Panthers, which was moved forward from last weekend to act as a curtain-raiser to Bathurst's NRL game last month.

"I think they'll be a bit fresher than we are, obviously having the week off after the (Bathurst Panthers) Knockout and I'm sure they'll be keen in their first home game of the season," Maley said.

"Outside Hawks, this as close as we get to a local derby so I'm sure they want to win as much as we do (because) we definitely don't want to start the season 0-2, we want to get things kick-started."

In the side's only other major change, Chris Grevsmuhl returns to the starting side in the back-row, with Robbie Mortimer moving to the interchange bench.

League tag is first on the Good Friday agenda from 11am, with premier league to kick-off at 2.30pm.