Penrith coach Matthew Elliott is making no special plans to cope with Mark Gasnier on Monday but is backing the returning St George Illawarra star to immediately find his feet in the NRL.

Gasnier will face the second-placed Panthers at Kogarah on Monday for his first league game in over two years following a stint playing rugby for French side Stade Francais.

Elliott admits he's given little thought to the prospect of facing the former Test and NSW centre as he works out a way to beat the ladder leaders.

And his task has been made harder with four players missing through State of Origin call-ups and in-form halfback Luke Walsh set to miss out with an ankle injury.

"We've put five new players into our team this week and our main focus has been fitting those guys into our system of play and when you have that change it's very difficult to focus on players from other teams," Elliott told AAP.

However, Elliott expects to see little evidence of ring rust from Gasnier and laughed off suggestions he may initially struggle.

"He is an outstanding player and it is great to see him back in the game," he said.

"I thought Lote Tuqiri may have struggled but with his first touch he scored a try and I can't believe how well he has been playing for the Tigers since.

"That was after being out for a longer period than Gaz, so I don't think it will take him long at all.

"He has been playing rugby league since he was a kid so it will be pretty natural for him really."

The Panthers' fine form this year has come at a cost with the loss of Michael Jennings, Luke Lewis and Michael Gordon to NSW duty, as well as skipper Petero Civoniceva to Queensland for Wednesday's State of Origin clash in Sydney.

However, Elliott welcomed the call-ups and is relishing the challenge of how his new-look side will fare against the ladder leaders, who are also without four of their Origin players.

"I don't look at it as being victims of our success at all, I am over the moon for all of those guys and I like the team we are posting and we will be a handful for the Dragons," he said.

"In the past Wayne Bennett has had to do it with his Brisbane sides and he approached it as something that was really exciting.

"I am excited by the team we are putting out, there are a lot of guys out there that haven't had the chance to play and there are a couple of guys out there making their debuts and that is great."

Dragons skipper Ben Hornby believes Gasnier's arrival will mean nothing if his side cannot rise to the occasion or feed off the excitment generated by the home crowd.

"Although it's great to have him there we've got to still go out there and do the hard work," Hornby said.

"I think there will be (a lift), I think the crowd will be pretty excited so I'm sure we'll get a lift out of that but if we're not playing well it's not going to matter."

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