A heavyweight pack will not necessarily guarantee North Queensland an advantage in Saturday's showdown in Townsville, according to Knights veteran David Fa'alogo.

The six forwards named in the Cowboys starting line-up outweigh their Newcastle counterparts by 24 kilograms, while the home team's bench are a collective six kilos larger than their opponents. In international props Matt Scott, James Tamou and Ben Hannant, the Cowboys boast one of the most formidable and experienced engine-room rotations in the NRL, while few players in the NRL can cause as much damage carrying the ball as Kiwi lock James Taumololo.

Fa'alogo said he had plenty of respect for North Queensland's prime movers, whom he noted had "all pretty much represented their country or played Origin", but was confident the Knights would at least hold their own in the battle up front. "There's pros and cons about having bigger squads and smaller squads," said the 102kg Fa'alogo.

"I think we're a mobile squad, whereas those[Cowboys] guys are on the heavy side and I think we can work them over around the rucks and sort of move them around a bit more. 'We'll be trying to make them defend, rather than giving them the ball and letting them come over the top of us.

"But I back our forward pack against theirs any day. We've got talent and guys that want to do the rough stuff, so we're looking forward to it."

Newcastle opened the season with a promising 24-14 win last weekend against the Warriors, while the Cowboys were given a 28-4 lesson on their own turf by the Roosters. Fa'alogo said the Knights were expecting North Queensland to provide much stiffer resistance than they did against the Roosters.

"It's always an extra-challenging game when we get up to Townsville, with the weather, slippery ball and also a Cowboys squad we've struggled against in the last couple of years," the 34-year-old said. "But we worked hard for that win last week and going up there, knowing that we're playing a team that got banged up, is probably a good thing for us. 'We want to go into games knowing that we have to work for it. That's been our mentality since the pre-season and that's not going to change, whether the team we're playing has won or lost."

The Samoan Test captain, a survivor of 182 NRL games for South Sydney and Newcastle, said he would be intent on staying onside with the referees on Saturday night after his 10-minute sin-binning against the Warriors, which left the Knights in a precarious position. "I went to get up to marker and I thought I was pretty square, but the ref thought differently," he said. "I thought it was pretty harsh . . . I think we were hard-done-by a couple of calls last week. The refs are trying to set a precedent in round one, but I think they just have to be consistent in their cause and the way it's interpreted."

Despite copping a post-match rocket from coach Rick Stone, Fa'alogo said he never doubted his teammates would hold the Warriors out in his absence. "Not at all," he said. "I had full confidence in the 12 boys who were out there for 10 minutes, and it changed the flow of the game I think. We trained in the pre-season in games with 12 players [against 13] and it came in handy."

Staying disciplined against the Cowboys will also mean being wary of Johnathan Thurston's deadly show-and-go. "I hear that every time we play the Cowboys," Fa'alogo said. "He's a player that is well known for his dummies and every team says the same thing.

"But it only takes one. Nothing changes for us. We know not to fall for a dummy from any player, but with Thurston you need that bit of extra awareness."