Already reeling from the loss of veteran Josh Piddington to serious facial injuries, Jaffas have Luke Virgili and Reece Papas suspended for the 8pm game at Edden Oval.

Piddington could miss the rest of the season after sustaining multiple fractures when hitting a netting pole at Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility last Wednesday night in the 2-1 win over Broadmeadow.

Virgili was then sent off in stoppage time for a second yellow card in the 2-1 loss to Valentine on Sunday at Blacksmiths Oval. Nick Cowburn scored the winner with the free kick from Virgili's second booking.

Papas, who replaced Piddington at centre-back, is also out for one match after his earlier booking for dissent triggered a ban for card accumulation.

Bren Hammel and Michael Kantarovski returned from long lay-offs in reserve grade on Sunday and could be options for Pryce.

"It's not ideal to be shuffling the deck at this time of the year, trying to find a new combination of centre-backs, but we've got to deal with it," Pryce said.

The coach said "we weren't at our best" against Phoenix and he was looking for a response from his players. Lambton are fourth on 23 points, six off the lead but with three games in hand, making a win over second-last Lakes vital to their premiership hopes.

"Everyone out there is probably thinking this is a game we should win, and probably the same against Valentine, but these are the danger ones and we've got to respect Lake Macquarie," he sad.

"If you don't turn up, you can get beat by just about any team.

"We were poor first half [against Valentine] and they played some good football, and we didn't take our chances. We were better in the second half but we were probably a bit flat on the quick back-up.

"We made some poor individual decisions and it cost us the game.

"But if we got a point, I would have said we were lucky, so we weren't at our best."

Pryce was hopeful of getting the game on at Edden Oval, which was to host the Valentine match then a NPLW game on Sunday before both were moved to avoid a washout.

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