Canterbury coach Des Hasler expects the Manly juggernaut he helped create to severely test his minor premiers in a mouth-watering opening to the NRL finals series.
It will be master against pupil as Hasler matches wits with former deputy Geoff Toovey on Friday night, 24 hours before Melbourne’s Craig Bellamy goes up against the man he helped groom into a head coach in South Sydney’s rookie mentor Michael Maguire.
In the two elimination finals, the Cowboys will host Brisbane in an all-Queensland blockbuster on Saturday night, while the Sharks travel to Canberra for Sunday’s encounter, having given up home ground advantage by losing their last-round game 36-22 to North Queensland.
Friday night’s juicy opener at ANZ Stadium will attract the spotlight, Hasler going up against the club he led to two premierships before leaving in acrimonious circumstances just days after the second triumph last year.
Hasler claimed the theatre of his rivalry with his former club had “well and truly been rehearsed and been done to death” with their two previous meetings this year.
Rather it is the hardened side he developed which he fears, with Manly’s 129 games of finals experience dwarfing the 46 of Canterbury who will have seven players making their play-offs debut.
“They’re a big-match side – lots of experience,” Hasler said of Manly.
“They’ve got gears in their team – they know when the big games come around they can seem to take it up a level.
“There’s an unknown quantity in this (Canterbury) side, but we can score points, we just have to hang in there in the grind.”
Having split their two games this season, Toovey was quick to adopt an old Hasler tactic in anointing the Bulldogs as the team to beat.
“They’ll be the favourites (on Friday), being the minor premiers and having a consistently good year,” Toovey said.
“We’ve been up and down, and that’s probably the difference between the two teams.
“Some of their players have really stepped up and really etched a name for themselves in the game.”
Bellamy, too, played down his coaching clash with Maguire, who spent six years under Bellamy at the Storm from 2004-2009.
“Our job is to prepare the teams during the week and at the end of the day we aren’t going to come together on the field,” Bellamy said.
“He’s done a wonderful job there at the Rabbitohs.
“They’ve been playing some really good footy.”
The Sharks have only themselves to blame for needing to travel to the nation’s capital for an elimination game on Sunday after they went down to a Cowboys side that had nothing hanging on the result.
In Sunday’s early game, the Raiders recovered from a 22-6 deficit to thump a poor Warriors side 42-22 to put the acid on the Sharks to win at Toyota Stadium.
But Cronulla capitulated for their sixth loss from the past eight games to hand the advantage to their finals rivals.
“Our performance today wasn’t anywhere near where it should be,” Sharks coach Shane Flanagan said.
“I have a sneaky suspicion they were looking ahead to next week a bit too much.”
Raiders coach David Furner says his side’s finals appearance is credit for their growth.
“Earlier in the year we may have been in that situation (down 22-6) and didn’t know to get out of it,” Furner said.
“That competition (the minor premiership) has gone and it’s about what we take out of the opportunities and obviously the challenges of semi-final football.”