Brown has named an unchanged team for the match against Counties-Manukau, keeping faith with the team that beat North Harbour 28-14 in Dunedin last Saturday.
Impact loose forward TJ Ioane has been nursing a badly bruised hand but the swelling has slowly been subsiding and he is expected to be right to take his place on the bench. If he is scratched, he will be replaced by Harbour flanker Naulia Dawai.
Counties-Manukau is keeping its cards close to its chest and will not name its team until today but it is likely to feature the return of livewire outside back and new captain Tim Nanai-Williams.
Brown said all of his players had recovered well from last week's game and this week had been about getting ready for the expected onslaught in Pukekohe.
It will be one year to the day that Otago won the Log O' Wood off Waikato, ending a 56-year drought for the union.
Brown said the plan from last year was essentially going to be mirrored this year.
''We are just making sure we can prepare as well as we can and come at it as just another game,'' Brown said.
''But everyone is pretty aware it is a shield challenge. We want to go in under the radar and give it our best shot.''
Last year - a tense 26-19 win in Hamilton - was a match of limited chances and Otago managed to take the ones that counted.
Brown said he would be emphasising the need to be strong in the tackle and cut down the home side's attackers.
''These games come down to defence. We need to wrap their guys up and not let them get into too many one-on-one situations.''
Brown said tackling needed to be a joint operation, and the big, strong Counties-Manukau players needed to be closed down before they started giving the ball some air.
Counties-Manukau had a boring draw with Taranaki in its first game of the ITM Cup but Brown is not taking any notice of that match.
''They are a different team at home. The shield is there to defend and early on they will try to put us under pressure. We have to stay composed early and make sure everything we are doing, we are doing together.''
Brown was impressed with the performance of his new forwards, lock Joe Latta and loose forward James Lentjes, and said lock was becoming a position of real playing depth.
Otago has not had much experience of playing in Pukekohe of late. It lost the 2012 Championship final there and was also beaten in a poor effort in 2010.
Its previous two wins over Counties-Manukau on the road were at Mt Smart Stadium.
One has to go back to 1999 to find Otago's last win at Pukekohe, although Counties-Manukau was a second division side for some of that intervening period.
