TSL: North Launceston to miss Alex Lee as Tasmania Devils come in

The Bombers will be travelling to Kingborough without co-captain and ruck Alex Lee due to COVID, with Tom Bennett to captain the side, which gains their Tasmania Devils players.

"Losing Alex is never good considering how important he is to the way we play," Cox-Goodyer said.

"It's unfortunate but we'll give Theo Ives a good crack in the ruck against Kingborough who have got a lot of talls, so it will be a good challenge for the young man.

"He's given us some good football this year, he's a bit patchy, which is kind of where he is at the moment, but he'll get a full crack in the ruck now so it will be a great opportunity for him."

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North will unveil two more debutants on Saturday, with Oscar Harper coming in as Ives' deputy after some strong form in the development league and Seth Campbell after dominating for the Devils against the Northern Territory.

Campbell kicked six goals and had 32 disposals and 11 marks in the clash and will be one of seven changes alongside Harper, Ethan Hubbard, Lachie Cowan, Heath Ollington, Mitch Nicholas, Brandon Leary.

The inclusion of the Devils players understandably excited the coach.

"It's a great game to have them, obviously we aren't quite there with Alex and Ben [Simpson] and Michael [Stingel] all missing but when you get guys like Lachie Cowan, Brandon Leary, Seth Campbell available and you top it off with Ethan Hubbard and Seth Campbell, it's very exciting," he said.

"They can play really good football, they use the ball well and they are hard at it so getting them back for this test against the Tigers is great."

Coming into the season, the Tigers were the team selected to join Launceston in grand final favouritism and so far they've only tasted defeat to the Blues.

Sitting second on the ladder, they've accounted for the other Southern TSL sides, with their dangerous tall targets Tyler Carter (14 goals) and recruit Jack Tomkinson in full flight.

"Obviously their height has been highly spoken about [and] their ability to get the ball into them, they're not going to lose many one on ones," Cox-Goodyer said.

"We are undersized as it is, so playing against a team like that is going to be tough and I really rate their midfield, obviously [Kieran] Lovell coming through there and I think Eddie Cole is really underrated in there."

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Cox-Goodyer also revealed that Michael Stingel, who received some glowing praise from former Bomber Jackson Callow, should return from injury against Lauderdale on May 22.

"The physio has nearly given him the green light to play next week but I'm cautious considering how much footy he's got to play at the back-end of the year," he said.

"He's been running this week, the pain's almost all gone, he's just got some bone bruising that realistically he can play with ... it's not going to hurt him structurally."

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