MELBOURNE Storm's eight international representatives would be fully fit for the defending premier's attempt to go to the top of the table when it played Newcastle at Olympic Park tonight, high-performance-unit manager Mary Toomey said yesterday.

They included back-rower Michael Crocker, who was sore in the left leg at the weekend. Crocker completed the Storm's training session last night, with Toomey saying a fitness test would be conducted this morning.

The Storm, fourth on 12 points with a 5-2 record, has a chance to go top if it defeats a rejuvenated Knights, after Brisbane was upset by Manly 30-12 yesterday. Gold Coast holds top spot with 14 points courtesy of its bye this round but the Storm has a slightly better points differential.

Toomey said the task of getting the Test stars ready for tonight had not been made more difficult by the numbers who played last Friday: Australia's Cameron Smith, Greg Inglis, Billy Slater, Israel Folau, Crocker and Ryan Hoffman and New Zealand's Jeremy Smith and Adam Blair.

"Increasing the number doesn't make the task more difficult," she said. "… it's a bigger challenge in terms of more consequences if we don't get them up but other than that it's no harder to do eight than it is to do one or two. I don't think there's any great rocket science to what we do; we just do everything you know you're meant to.

"We've had time to get them refuelled with three days (after the Test so) they should be fine with that."

Newcastle, coming off defeating Gold Coast, has omitted Adam MacDougall (hamstring) and Steve Simpson (knee).

Meanwhile, Darren Lockyer has been ruled out for up to six weeks and may miss the entire state-of-origin series after knee surgery yesterday, but Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett suggests Queensland selectors would be "silly" to thrust teammate Karmichael Hunt into the five-eighth role.

Bennett revealed that Lockyer would need four to six weeks to recover from what doctors described as a successful operation on his right knee — then hit out at speculation Maroons selectors were set to pick Hunt at pivot, to accommodate Slater at full-back. "That's what NSW do (choose players out of position). We don't do that … I don't think Queensland would be that silly, personally," Bennett said.

The origin teams will be announced tomorrow and Storm could have up to nine players picked.

With BRAD WALTER