A Kiwi-born 21-year-old with two NRL games' experience and a 20-year-old Papua New Guinea-born rookie will make their debuts for North Queensland against an in-form Melbourne on Monday.

Kalifa Faifai Loa, who played two NRL games for St George Illawarra last year, takes over on the wing from Michael Bani, sent back to the Queensland Cup following a disappointing game against Newcastle last weekend.

The other debutant, Garoka-born James Segeyaro, has been named on the interchange bench in place of Ben Jones who also goes back to the Q Cup.

Cowboys coach Neil Henry said Bani's unhappy evening against the Knights had presented Faifai Loa with an opportunity.

"He's an enthusiastic young player who got player of the match in his first game for the Dragons against Canberra," he said.

"He's a dynamic runner of the ball, he looks for work but he's not that experienced at first grade level."

Segeyaro impressed Henry in the Cowboys Colts side last year after returning from a shoulder injury.

He scored two timely tries for the Pride against the Comets at the weekend.

"He's got a good running game and he could add a bit of spark off the bench," said Henry.

While Bani and Jones felt the axe, prop James Tamou survived the chop.

"You look at his statistics ... he made a few errors but he did run 14 times for 120-odd metres, made 39 tackles and played 59 minutes after we lost Matty Scott with a cork," said Henry.

"I get a bit defensive about media reports about (Tamou) being axed after one game coming off the back of a very good effort in round one."

The Cowboys can ill-afford to lose co-captain Scott who has a significant cork.

"He's been getting treatment on it but he's definitely inconvenienced by it," admitted Henry.

After a two point first-up win against Brisbane the Cowboys were off the pace against the Knights.

"It's fixable, isn't it?" said Henry.

"If it's attitude or not being switched on, that's a personal issue.

"We were up one week and not two weeks in a row and we've seen that from a few teams this week, we saw it again on Monday night with Cronulla.

Henry said up against a side as sharp as Melbourne with Billy Slater, Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk, his players had to be ready to "get into the grind" from the outset.

"We're all hurting a bit and Monday night takes a while to come around.

"Hopefully we're all anxious to get out and prove that (big loss to Newcastle) was an anomaly in our season."

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