Grateful for a Queensland lifeline, World Cup scapegoat Guy Shepherdson is desperate to repay the Reds by nullifying the Waratahs' "weapon" scrum on Saturday night.

Shepherdson will make his Reds run-on debut in the interstate grudge match at Suncorp Stadium after being pitch-forked into battle with Test prop Benn Robinson following an injury to James Slipper.

Reds coach Ewen McKenzie's canny recruitment of the unwanted 29-year-old tight-head late last year after six seasons at the Brumbies has been highlighted by Slipper's untimely scratching.

Shepherdson still had a year to run on his Brumbies contract but had fallen well behind Salesi Ma'afu in 2010 and was virtually thrown on the scrapheap when NSW prop Dan Palmer was lured to Canberra.

"To be fair, I'd been part of the woodwork at the Brumbies for a fair amount of time so it was a chance to do something a bit different," Shepherdson told AAP.

"I was getting a bit comfortable and maybe I needed a chance to shake things up a bit so the chance to come to the Reds and be coached by a guy like Link (McKenzie) and play in a team with the talent this team has, I was pretty grateful.

"It was an easy decision really."

Despite some torrid pre-season training battles with Slipper, Ben Daley and Greg Holmes, Shepherdson has only gained a few minutes off the bench in the 19-6 upset of the Stormers as the Reds young scrum has thrived under pressure.

But McKenzie is full of confidence in Shepherdson, who played the last of his 18 Tests in Australia's forgettable 2007 World Cup quarter-final loss to England, where he was taken apart by Andy Sheridan.

"He's played 70-odd Super games and nearly 20 Test matches so he's a pretty handy guy to bring in," the coach said. "He'll feel that maybe it (the start) could have come earlier but here's the opportunity now and it's a big game."

Saturday night's occasion, where the Reds are attempting a record seventh straight win in 2011 as wellas ending a seven-year drought against NSW, isn't lost on the 119kg scrum anchor.

"It's a game you really want to play," Shepherdson said.

"The team we're playing have a tremendously strong forward pack and have been consistently good for the last 10 years.

"They've got a world-class scrum that's for sure, it's been a real weapon of there's for a number of seasons so it's one of the biggest challenges in Super Rugby."

A successful start for his adopted state could put him back in Wallabies reckoning for another late World Cup tilt but that's furthest from Shepherdson's mind.

"The competition for spots here at the Reds is enormous and I'm not getting ahead of myself at all - I'm not looking one minute past the whistle on Saturday night," he said.

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