De Belin unsuccessfully challenged a grade one dangerous contact charge arising out of an apparent crusher tackle on Parramatta back-rower Kenny Edwards in the the Dragons 24-10 loss to Eels last Sunday.

It also ruled him out of Origin II on Wednesday where he was set to warm up as the Blues’ 18^th man, with Trent Merrin rushed in as a late replacement.

Having hit some wobbles in recent weeks, dropping five of their last seven games, de Belin’s suspension comes at a poor time for the Dragons as they look to avoid three losses on the bounce against the Knights.

It will be a milestone match for Vaughan, who will notch his 100th first grade game since debuting in the NRL with the Raiders in 2013.

He will no doubt have to shoulder a greater load against the Knights, but he said his side will need several players to lift in de Belin’s absence.

“He’s a fantastic player. He’s in State of Origin camp for a reason, it’s because he’s a gun,” Vaughan said.

“It’s going to be a pretty big void there but other boys have just got to step up.

“Whether it’s playing extra minutes or doing a it of ball-playing, we're confident we can do that.

“He leaves some big shoes to fill but I’m sure whoever steps up there will be more than capable.”

De Belin has been the glue in what – with Vaughan and Russell Packer – was the form middle unit of the competition over the opening 11 rounds.

That power game saw the Dragons big men earn plenty of raps in a 6-1 start to the season and, having gone under the radar early on, Vaughan believes rival packs have lifted in recent weeks.

“Team’s have been targeting our middle a fair bit but that’s no excuse, we’re up to it,” Vaughan said.

“We’ve been getting some extra attention but we’ve got to combat that.

“I think we have been doing that, our strength is still our middle, it’s just little things and a little bit of polish there.

“I think we’ve just gone away from things that were working for us. Just simple things like push around the footy and that kind of stuff.

“We’re not too worried about it, we’ve just got to get back to doing things the way we know we can.”

Injury and representative commitments have disrupted the middle part of the Dragons season.

They’ve also been sluggish coming out of their round 12 bye and, having got off to a flyer in 2017, Vaughan said it was inevitable his side would hit a few speed bumps at some stage.

“You can’t go through a season perfectly,” Vaughan said.

“You’d be pretty naive to think you’re going to go through a whole season without any hiccups and we’ve just hit a few hiccups at the moment. 

“You’ve just got to weather the storm there, even if we do have a couple of down weeks.

“This little period coming up is a real important block for us. We’ve got two weeks and then a bye.

“If we can string some wins together and get that bye, we can come back freshened up for the back end of the season and put ourselves in a good position.”