Broncos winger Dale Copley has been ruled out of the team to face the Sharks in Sydney on Friday night after breaking down with a calf injury at training on Thursday morning.
After a week in the Intrust Super Cup where he performed strongly for the Central Queensland Capras, Corey Oates earns a recall to first grade in a game where Joe Ofahengaue and Kodi Nikorima will both make their NRL debuts off the bench.
Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett indicated that the injury to Copley is likely to sideline him for a number of weeks but praised the way Oates had responded in his comeback from shoulder surgery.
"They usually go a bit longer than one week those things. They used to be an old runner's injury once, now they've become a young footballer's injury. We've got two of them now at the moment," said Bennett, referencing the calf injury that ruled prop forward Mitchell Dodds out earlier in the week.
"[Corey] has done everything right and he played really good last week for the Capras which is what you want to see them do.
"The feedback was all good about him so it's an opportunity he wasn't expecting, hopefully he'll take it."
While he joked that when he left the Broncos at the end of 2008 Sam Thaiday was an interchange forward, Bennett said the impact that Matt Gillett brought when he was introduced off the bench last week is a lesson for all players in that position.
With Jarrod Wallace earning a recall and Nikorima and Ofahengaue making their debuts it is a new-look bench for the Broncos to that which went down to the Rabbitohs in Round 1 and Bennett is hoping for similar impact to the one Gillett brought last week.
"He was good last week but it always reminds you that some guys put their jersey on and go through the motions, another puts the jersey on and he wanted to prove something to everyone because he's on the bench," Bennett said.
"You want them like that every week so I just hope that this week he can come back and play as good as he did last week.
"When I left [Sam] was on the interchange bench so I've come back and he's on the interchange bench. He's had six good years."
