Aberdeen Grammar will be without injured forwards Matthias Schosser and Jonny Spence until after Christmas.
Both were injured in last Saturday’s 20-10 win at Edinburgh Accies, with German international Schosser damaging ankle ligaments and Spence pulling a hamstring.
Glasgow Hawks visit tomorrow and Grammar will also be without last week’s try-scorer Ross Anderson, who is offshore, while Murray Mitchell is an injury doubt.
Coach Ali O’Connor said: “We’ll have to work them back in gradually. The good thing is when they do come back, they’ll give us a boost as they’re cracking players.
“We won’t offer any excuses. We’re confident in the squad that we’ve got to get a result.”
Grammar felt the benefits of extra defensive work put in during the build-up to the Accies game – given their leaky defence against the league’s top sides.
Grammar had conceded a combined 149 points in three games against Currie, Marr and Hawick, who occupy the top three spots.
O’Connor added: “There had been a lot of contact work in training – we felt we had to risk the injury count. We came through it OK and sometimes you have to strip it back and get players prepared.
“If we can put into play the defensive shape we’ve been working on and reduce the error, we’d be confident of a result.
“They’ve had a good run of form and they narrowly lost to Selkirk last weekend. They pose a physical challenge up front. They will test our resolve and commitment to put in the hits.”
After those three defeats, O’Connor hopes a corner has been turned with the creditable triumph in the capital.
He said: “We played two or three of the top teams and the boys were not overly delighted with how they accounted for themselves.
“The mood was never that low but the boys were desperate to get back to winning ways.”