Ellis suffered bone bruising to the knee in the opening quarter of last week's shock loss to Coleambally.

Barellan feared Ellis may have joined coach Alex Lawder and Mick Lovett with season-ending knee injuries but the Two Blues match-winner received a positive prognosis and is only expected to miss two to three games.

"It didn't look good. He did it in the first quarter but battled on," Lawder said.

"He'll be two to three weeks. We've got a bye next week, whether we get him back the week after, we'll see how he responds.

"It's positive because we were thinking the worst with how things have gone, at least we'll see him again."

Ellis' injury paves the way for the return of Fernie, who was cleared back to Barellan this week.

Fernie played 19 games for the Two Blues across three seasons from 2017-19 and will take up a small forward role for the remainder of the year.

"When we lost Mick Lovett, who is obviously a huge loss, then when I went down, we started talking about different options and what to do and when Sean went down we were thinking the worst," Lawder said.

"To try and get players out of other teams is very hard at this point in time and it's also not a good look either. We were discussing different options and there is a lot of options but it was also a needs basis too.

"Mal's been training with us and hasn't been playing. The last game he played was for Barellan but he's fitter than he's ever been."

Barellan remain in fifth spot despite last week's loss to Coleambally but have a number of clubs, including CSU, breathing down their neck.

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Lawder gave credit to Coleambally for their performance and put his team's effort down to a learning experience.

"Our system fell down a bit. It was disappointing, especially on a big day for a couple of our legends but we saved our worst performance for the year for it," he said.

"Especially after pushing The Rock the week before and only just falling short and produce that the following week.

"I've always been optimistic but also been realistic in regards to it's hard to go from being a bottom team to all of a sudden being a top team overnight. We always knew there was going to be some fluctuations and stuff along the way. But yeah we're still disappointed, don't get me wrong."

Lawder said ball movement is the biggest focus heading into the trip to Peter Hastie Oval on Saturday.

"We've just been drumming in our ball movement and stuff and just some minor tweaks. We know it's there, we know the nucleus of what we want to do, it's just making sure that we sustain it, that's the biggest thing," he said.

"It's just a bit of a blip on the radar, really, on the weekend. Hopefully we can fix it up but it was a costly game and I don't think anyone really expected it.

"It was typical of the game against Coly earlier in the year when we drew, when you go into those games expecting to win, sometimes you think it's just going to happen without putting in the work. We learnt that earlier in the year and unfortunately we made the same mistake."

While Lawder realises the importance of Saturday's fifth versus sixth battle, he is not putting any extra emphasis on the game.

"We've got to treat every game the same, really, no matter who we're coming up against," he said.

"It is a big game, especially at CSU, and they seem to be moving along pretty nicely lately but every game's a big game for us, really, so I'm not highlighting anything in particular, we've just got to turn up on the day and try to get the job done."

Meantime, Lawder received some good news on the knee injury he sustained against The Rock-Yerong Creek a fortnight ago.

He has torn the medial, dislocated his kneecap and done damage to meniscus and the patella but only strained the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) so has dodged a knee reconstruction.

"A bit of relief there. No surgery but a 20-week recovery," he said.

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