Maitland Pickers to concentrate on their own game against The Entrance

Coming off what he described as an "ugly" 24-6 win against Wests last Saturday, Lantry said preparing this week was really about concentrating on the Pickers game and improving on a "disappointing performance".

"I really think this week it's more important to focus on us. I was really disappointed with the performance on the weekend, but in saying that it's early days round two and it's still nice that we could win ugly," Lantry said.

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"It's an opportunity for us to respond this weekend with better intensity with everything we do. That's probably the key thing I'm looking for."

Lantry was pleased with the efforts of his bench players in particular Pete Wilson, Cal Burgess and Faitotoa Faitotoa as well Sam Anderson and hat-trick scorer James Bradley.

"Sam Anderson was good, I thought he had some really good charges through the first half, but we just failed to get on the back of it," he said.

"We missed the opportunity to run and jump on the back of those good carries."

The Entrance had a narrow 16-12 loss to Wyong in ankle deep water in round one and their round two game against South Newcastle was washed out.

While there is no real form to judge them, Lantry knows that any side coached by Jamy Forbes will be playing for him and play to the last minute of the game.

"I think it will be a lot like Saturday's game against Wests, a bit more of a grinding affair and we will look at improving on what we do.

"They will be led well around the ground by their halfback Will Pearsal. He kicks the ball very well and one area in particular is his short kicking game.

"We will need to make sure we apply some genuine kick pressure on Will close to the line and not give him too much time with the ball.

"The No.9 Matthew Killick is handy and they've got a pretty decent sized pack. Their centre Shaune Corrigan is an ex-NRL player with South Sydney and goes really well."

Lantry is confident games will go ahead on Saturday despite forecasts for heavy rain on Thursday.

"I think we should be a really good chance to get on. It's the best surface in the Hunter region outside McDonald Jones Stadium and we're led to believe it has terrific drainage so we will see," he said.

The Pickers will be joined at the Maitland Sportsground by the Newcastle Knights who will be taking on the Penrith Panthers in the Tarsha Gale (11am), Harold Matthews (12.30pm) and SG Ball (2pm) competitions.

The main game will have a delayed start of 3.30pm.

Lantry said there would be some exciting young talent on display with both the Knights and Panthers saying their futures are both based on building teams from their own youth programs.

"We will be seeing what the future of Knights and Penrith holds. In SG Ball we will have Maitland juniors Taj Ridley, Rory Whitby and Noah Nailagoliva," he said.