Knights out to spoil Storm homecoming party

Jayden Brailey is wary of the emotion premiers Melbourne will be feeling as they return to AAMI Park on Saturday night for the first time since round four last year.

The Storm are the only club that isn't required to be based in Queensland after only returning from the Sunshine Coast earlier this month following a two-month stint, where the Knights have now coincidentally been relocated.

An extended Knights squad flew out of the Hunter on Wednesday before they'll undergo a fly-in and fly-out scenario to Melbourne on Saturday.

The Knights have put together back-to-back wins in the past month over the Warriors and Cowboys but were 0-3 when flying on game day last year.

"You know what to expect when you play Melbourne," Brailey said.

"They're going to have some more motivation back home in Melbourne.

"It's a really big challenge and I'm really excited for it. The Storm are the benchmark, up there with the Panthers.

"They've been playing some really good football this year. We're fly-in-fly-out and it's going to be a challenge for us to see how we're going.

"Of course there's been some disruptions and changes but at the end of the day our whole focus is on how we perform on Saturday.

"There's no excuses."

The ninth-placed Knights are equal with eighth-placed Cronulla on 16 competition points but an inferior for and against has them outside the eight.

In line with the side shifting their campaign north, the next month of the competition looms as crucial to whether they play finals football for a second consecutive season.

"This is the time of the year you want to be tracking in that direction," Brailey said.

"What happened in the early rounds doesn't mean a lot in the scope of our run into the finals.

"We're on the cusp of the eight. There are only eight games to go and we need to win a majority of those to play finals football.'

Brailey was hopeful representative forwards Daniel Saifiti (ribs) and Tyson Frizell (ankle) would get through training this week and take their place on Saturday.

"They will be big inclusions if we can have both those guys get through," Brailey said.

"We've got a lot of players coming back in now, we're probably the healthiest we've been all year."