Queensland Reds have lost Greg Holmes for their Super Rugby match against Western Force at nib Stadium in Perth on Saturday, the veteran scrum anchor at the forefront of the team's impressive set-piece this season having been sidelined by a knee injury.

Reds coach Richard Graham has switched James Slipper to tight-head and called Ben Daley into the front-row, but he hopes Holmes will be back to face New South Wales Waratahs in the team's final Super Rugby match of the season.

Holmes is one of three injury-forced changes Queensland have made to the starting side that outplayed Melbourne Rebels 36-20 last week, with former Wallabies winger Lachie Turner replacing Dom Shipperley (ankle) and Fiji-born Samu Kerevi making his run-on debut at outside centre with Anthony Fainga'a also ruled out for the rest of the campaign with a calf injury. Kerevi's call-up means Ben Tapuai moves one spot closer to the action at inside centre in a backline missing five regular starters.

Lock-flanker Tim Buchanan, the son of former Australia cricket coach John Buchanan, is among four uncapped players on the bench having replaced Commonwealth Games-bound Liam Gill.

Graham said the injury-ravaged Reds, also without star halves Will Genia and Quade Cooper, would revel in the rare status of underdogs against the Force, questioning if the Perth team could cope with the pressure of playing their way into a breakthrough finals series.

The Force have been underdogs against the Reds in the past three seasons but the boot is well and truly on the other foot on Saturday: the home side sit seventh on the table and needing to win their final two matches, against Queensland and the Brumbies, to book a maiden play-offs berth; the Reds, meanwhile, sit 12th on the ladder under pressure apart from that they put on themselves.

Graham, the Force's coach when they started their four-game unbeaten streak against Queensland in 2012, has seen how the Perth team's breakdown efficiency and spoiling tactics have laid the platform for three upset wins and draw.

"Now having to win the last two games, there's a fair bit of pressure on them mentally," Graham said of Michael Foley's team that boasted the third-best defence in the competition before the June break but which struggled to handle expectations and an explosive Blues outfit in conceding six tries in a 40-14 loss last weekend.

"It's a very different situation for them being in that finals [hunt] opposed to stopping other teams making the finals.

"So their thought process will be different and might put a little more pressure on them."

Queensland: Mike Harris; Rod Davies, Samu Kerevi, Ben Tapuai, Lachie Turner; Ben Lucas, Nick Frisby; Jake Schatz, Beau Robinson, Curtis Browning; James Horwill (captain), Rob Simmons; James Slipper, James Hanson, Ben Daley. Replacements: Saia Fainga'a, Albert Anae, Sef Faagase, David McDuling, Tim Buchanan, Scott Gale, Sam Johnson, Jamie-Jerry Taulagi.