Anthony Griffin may be a rookie NRL coach, but he is wise enough to know he should listen to any case Brisbane captain Darren Lockyer makes to play against Melbourne on Saturday night.

In a calculated gamble Brisbane announced on Tuesday that Lockyer, Sam Thaiday, Justin Hodges, Ben Hannant and Jharal Yow Yeh won't be asked to back up 24 hours after playing for Australia in Friday night's Test against the Kiwis.

Griffin met Lockyer last week and told him Brisbane were going to take on Melbourne without him and his Kangaroo teammates.

But Griffin conceded late on Tuesday he'd be foolish not to consider a late request from his captain to play.

"If he was to wake up on Saturday morning knowing in his own mind he wanted to play, we'd talk about it," Griffin told AAP.

"He's our captain, he's one of the all-time great players of our game.

"If he rings up on Saturday morning and says he's raring to go and wants to play, that would be a plus for us.

"(But) if we go with the 17 players named, I'm confident we can be very competitive."

Griffin named a 19-man squad on Tuesday which included little-known Wynnum Manly winger Shea Moylan and two other rookies, Kurt Baptise and Justin Hunt, who recently scored three tries in a Queensland Cup game.

He left all six players involved on Friday night's trans-Tasman Test out of his squad.

Moylan though could be denied a shock NRL debut with Brisbane's sixth Test representative, utility Gerard Beale, unlikely to be included in Kiwi coach Stephen Kearney's Test 17.

Beale would play centre enabling Dale Copley to move back out to the wing at Moylan's expense.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy said he couldn't rule out late changes to his side for the clash with seven players on representative duty the night before.

However he couldn't imagine all of Brisbane's Test players missing the clash, especially Lockyer, who he said backed up against the Storm last year after playing in the one-off Test.

Meanwhile the Cowboys named co-captains Johnathan Thurston and Matt Scott in the side to play St George Illawarra, who have no less than 10 players involved in representative games on Friday night.

With Titans hooker Nathan Friend due to go under the knife next week for urgent shoulder surgery, coach John Cartwright has promoted hookers Riley Brown and Kayne Lawton into his extended 18-man squad for Sunday's battle with the in-form Warriors at Skilled Park.

"(Riley) hasn't had a lot of game time there but he played the first three or four games (at hooker) and we had a good win down at Canberra," said Cartwright.

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