Greater Northern Tigers: Liam Foran named at five-eighth for Country Championships opener

The Denman captain-coach will wear the No 6, and will be partnered in the halves by Manilla captain-coach Mitchell Doring.

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North Tamworth No 6 Scott Blanch will play hooker, with his young Bears teammate Bailey Taylor at fullback.

"He's got a lot of experience in his own right," McManus said of Foran. "He's played at a pretty high level. I'm looking forward to him steering the ship around."

Foran, the older brother of Manly star Kieran Foran, played a total of 10 NRL matches for the Storm and the Sea Eagles between 2008 and 2012.

He then notched up 15 matches for Salford City in the UK's Super League.

McManus said Blanch "played a lot of nine early on in his career".

"I think he can steer the ship from there ... He's probably running on old legs now, but he'll go all right," the ex-Bears mentor added.

On Friday at Jack Woolaston Oval, the side had their fourth training run together.

McManus believes he has "a good mixture of youth and experience" at his disposal.

"Slowly but surely starting to gel," he said. "It's not that much time to get things rolling."

McManus said he "really likes" the Tigers' pack. "We've got some big bodies in the pack, and our backline will match it," he said.

"There's some really young, fit blokes there. I'm sort of looking forward to it."

The match starts at 1pm.

The Tigers will also play the Knights in the Andrew Johns Cup (10am), the Laurie Daley Cup (11.20am) and the women's Country Championships (2.40pm).

Tigers: 1. Bailey Taylor, 2. Dylan Lake, 3. Ronin Hadden, 4. Mitch Hurrell, 5. Harlee Millgate, 6. Liam Foran, 7. Mitchell Doring, 8. Lincon Smith, 9. Scott Blanch, 10, Matt Hay, 11. Brett Jarrett, 12. KC Edmonds, 13. Daniel Hoogerwerf, 14. Mitchell Sheridan, 15. Matt Baker, 16. Isaac Austin, 17. Beau Harry.