McMahon will not play because she is recovering from knee surgery but will cheer her teammates on from the sideline and wants a vocal Novocastrian crowd to give her a hand.

"The Newcastle crowd are really fantastic, and they really get behind their teams and make a lot of noise," McMahon said. "I know what it's like when I've been up there playing for Melbourne, and it will be great for all the girls from other states to have them cheering like that for us.

"We had to face it over in New Zealand recently.

"Packed stadiums with lots of noise can be fairly intimidating, so we need Newcastle to help us make that sort of an atmosphere."

The Diamonds will need all the help they can get with star shooters McMahon and Catherine Cox missing on Saturday.

The pair have almost 170 Test caps between them.

Cox was hoping to play her first Test as captain while McMahon was out of action.

But Cox has been ruled out because of a recurring ankle injury that restricted her to the first half only of the second Test against New Zealand in Auckland two weeks ago.

Playing for the first time under their new nickname, the Diamonds won the first Test against the Silver Ferns 53-51 in Christchurch and lost the second 38-31 in Auckland.

"We had three players make their debut in the second Test over in New Zealand, so it's a bit of a changing of the guard," McMahon said.

"We've had quite a few team changes since the World Cup last year and [coach] Norma [Plummer] is still sorting through a few different options.

"The girls in the team this weekend are obviously short on international experience, but they've all gained so much from playing in the ANZ Championship this year."

England also benefited from the inaugural trans-Tasman series because six of their players were scattered through the 10-team competition, including co-captains Sonia Mkoloma and Karen Atkinson.

Mkoloma, who played for Kiwi team Central Pulse, shared the league's Player of the Year award with Jamaica's Romelda Aiken, who played for Queensland Firebirds.

Newcastle has not hosted a netball Test since Cox led Australia to a thumping 53-30 win over New Zealand in June, 2000.

In that time the NEC has hosted several Sydney and NSW Swifts matches and was home to the Hunter Jaegers national league team from 2004 to 2007.

Saturday's match starts at 7pm. Tickets are available from Ticketek on 132 849 or at www.ticketek.com.au.