MARRAR will be without reigning Gerald Clear Medallist Zach Walgers for Saturday's showdown with Northern Jets.
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Walgers will miss his first game of the season for the Bombers, with a hip complaint keeping Marrar's assistant coach out of the crucial clash at Langtry Oval.
The second-placed Bombers have won their past five games but will face a desperate Jets outfit that are looking to get back inside the Farrer League top five.
Walgers and the unavailable Riley Bradshaw come out of the Marrar team, with Cameron Walshe back in and Harry Palmer set to make his first grade Bombers debut.
Marrar coach Cal Gardner expects Walgers to miss just the one game.
"He's got a little bit of a hip niggle," Gardner explained.
"He's had a little bit of treatment this week and he'll sit this week out but it should only be the one week."
Gardner believes it is a good opportunity for some of Marrar's midfielders to step up.
"One comes out but one comes in to fill his spot," he said.
"Harry Palmer will be a good addition for us from the bench. He'll provide us with a type of player that we don't really have.
"I was really impressed with his first game that he played in reserve grade and he's gone about it the right way since then with his training and dedication.
"He'll be a nice replacement for Zachy."
Palmer has 25 first grade games experience for UNSW-Eastern Suburbs in AFL Sydney and also played a handful of senior games for Ainslie in AFL Canberra in his younger days.
He impressed for Marrar in reserve grade a couple of weeks ago and has now committed to play out the season.
"He's good mates with the Sydney boys that are playing for us at the moment," Gardner explained.
"He played with them at UNSW, so that's the link there and he just wanted a game of footy the other week so he played ressies and loved it.
"He came to our ball and I think that helped him love it even more so from there, a couple of days later he committed to the rest of the season so it's a big win for us I think."
Marrar and Northern Jets have played out some enthralling contests over the past couple of seasons.
The Jets have had the last laugh on the past two occasions, coming from behind at three-quarter-time to win both.
Jack Harper put in a last quarter masterclass in last year's preliminary final, while the Jets came back from 32 points down to beat the Bombers in round two.
Gardner admitted he has spoken about the loss earlier this year with the group this week.
"Yeah we've had some good battles with them, particularly over the last couple of years, some really close games so we really look forward to the games against them. They're a quality outfit," he said.
"But I guess we reflected on the game that we played earlier in the year on their home deck and we basically spoke about how we let ourselves down more than anyone.
"We were playing good footy, the way we want to play and we thought that was good enough and we switched off.
"I think we've learnt a good lesson from that and I just spoke throughout the week about how we owe it to ourselves more than anyone."
