Despite the Blues sitting ninth with a 1-4 win-loss record Littlejohn knows the cross-town rivalry clashes always bring out the best in both teams.

"We know Lonnie will bring their best effort and we saw that when they played the Western Storm earlier in the year on a Friday night again and they turned up to play some good footy and had some good contributors across the board despite being down to 19 or 20 men," he said.

"They showed they have some real spirit at their footy club and are prepared to take games right down to the end and often come out on top because of their spirit.

"And being Scuba's (Scott Stephens) 200th game it is obviously going to have a lot of influence on that as well."

Littlejohn said the week off for the bye was beneficial in allowing players to freshen up physically and mentally but sometimes it can halt momentum when a side is playing good football.

"The challenge is to pick that momentum up again and we need to play four quarters of footy and not slacken off at all," he said.

The Northern Bombers are waiting on the fitness of defender Andrew Cox-Goodyer as to whether he is ready to return from a hamstring injury in what should be the club's only change if he comes up.

The week off has not improved the Blues playing stocks with the injury list getting longer rather than shorter.

Tom Claridge is in doubt with a hip injury, Jack Donnellan has a shoulder tear, Cameron Downie is ill and Sonny Whiting and Tim Gibbons are still a couple of weeks away from returning.

"We are probably worse off than we were when we went to Glenorchy a couple of weeks ago so things are not getting better but with that comes opportunity and experience for younger guys that are putting their hand up," Stephens said.

"We seem to have played our best footy against North over the past 12 months and are looking for a peak performance from the boys again."