It'll be a battle of two surprise packets in the second qualifying final of the weekend, with the Cronulla Sharks and North Queensland Cowboys to square off for the right to move within 80 minutes of a grand final appearance.
While there may have been some predictions suggesting the Cronulla Sharks would end up in the finals this season, and even some suggesting they were a chance to crack the top four on the back of the signings of Cameron McInnes, Dale Finucane and Nicho Hynes, few could have foreseen the club having the right to host a qualifying final.
If there were few predictions suggesting the Sharks would perform as well as they ultimately have, then there were even less for the Cowboys.
In fact, a vast majority had the Cowboys in the bottom four.
What Todd Payten has been able to achieve has been something incredible in Townsville this year. Potentially, luck has played a role with an injury to Hamiso Tabuai Fidow allowing Scott Drinkwater to take the number one jersey and completely transform the side after a start to the year which had potential, but looked shakey nonetheless.
While Drinkwater has been the star of the show for the Cowboys, this is a side with plenty of players who have stood up and turned their form into something new.
The trend of leaving another club and improving has certainly been a big one in Townsville, with former Bronco Tom Dearden and former Cowboy Chad Townsend going excellently in the halves.
They have been joined by an exceptional crop of forwards. Jordan McLean has had his best season in some time, Coen Hess has rediscovered himself in the middle third, Payten finally worked out the role Jason Taumalolo should be playing, and the second row rotation which added Luciano Leilua mid-season, has gone from strength to strength to ultimately become one of the competition's strongest.
But they now are faced with the enviable task of travelling to Sydney, and more specifically to the Shire, where they will hope not to get lose in the Bermuda Triangle.
Cronulla have built their season on a much stronger defensive mindset than the one they employed over the recent years, with the club moving back towards what they had when they took out a maiden premiership in 2016.
Like Payten in Townsville, Craig Fitzgibbon in the Shire has been a revelation after he took up the first head coaching job of his career.
The Sharks, like the Cowboys, haven't been perfect, but they have been closer to it a lot more often than most other teams, and when they get it right, they are an incredibly difficult team to defeat.
As mentioned, their three signings have all gone excellently, while the addition of Hynes has seemed to take Matt Moylan's game to a level that hasn't been seen since he made his exit from the Penrith Panthers.
Those halves will be critical to any finals progress, but it'll still mainly be all about defence and doing the little things right for Cronulla, which, again, are two themes which have shaped their entire season and run all the way to second spot on the table.
Despite the fact the Shire ground is currently undergoing rennovations, a crowd of a little over 11,000 will be on hand to see this final, and that in itself undoubtedly gives the Cronulla side another edge after managing to defeat the Knights last weekend and hang onto second spot, a position that the Cowboys looked like they were going to be able to control the destiny of for much of the second half of the campaign.
Team news
Cronulla Sharks
1. Will Kennedy 2. Connor Tracey 3. Jesse Ramien 4. Siosifa Talakai 5. Ronaldo Mulitalo 6. Matt Moylan 7. Nicho Hynes 8. Toby Rudolf 9. Blayke Brailey 10. Royce Hunt 11. Briton Nikora 12. Wade Graham 13. Dale Finucane
Interchange: 14. Teig Wilton 15. Cameron McInnes 16. Braden Hamlin-Uele 17. Andrew Fifita 18. Lachlan Miller 19. Aiden Tolman
The Sharks will finally welcome back William Kennedy for this week's clash. He has been missing for the last month and a half with injury, but is a timely inclusion to kick-off the finals.
The club's 2021 player of the year will come straight in for Lachlan Miller at the back.
Connor Tracey is also back and will move straight onto the wing which was last week occupied by Matt Ikuvalu, while key forwards Finucane and Toby Rudolf also make their returns to the starting team, with Cameron McInnes and Braden Hamlin-Uele strengthening the bench, while Aiden Tolman drops out of the 17.
North Queensland Cowboys
1. Scott Drinkwater 2. Kyle Feldt 3. Valentine Holmes 4. Peta Hiku 5. Murray Taulagi 6. Tom Dearden 7. Chad Townsend 8. Jordan McLean 9. Reece Robson 10. Reuben Cotter 11. Luciano Leilua 12. Jeremiah Nanai 13. Jason Taumalolo
Interchange: 14. Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow 15. Tom Gilbert 16. Coen Hess 17. Griffin Neame 18. Jamayne Taunoa-Brown 20. Jake Granville
The Cowboys are reasonably settled coming into this qualifying final, and will be hoping to keep it that way for the remainder of their season.
Coen Hess, who missed the Round 25 win over a Penrith Panthers side who played without all of their starting 13, will return from his suspension in the side's only change.
He has been named on the bench with Queensland State of Origin gun Reuben Cotter holding his starting spot, while Jamayne Taunoa-Brown drops out of the side.
Where it'll be won and lost
The Cronulla Sharks went through the 2021 season as a top four team... If games had of finished at halftime.
It was a remarkable stat that the Sharks conceded over 100 extra points in the second halves of games in 2021 than they did in the first half, and were a bottom-four team for second half performance all up.
That is something the club clearly identified in signing not only Fitzgibbon as coach, but McInnes and Finucane as the middle third leaders.
The club have improved out of sight on the back of that this season, but still haven't been perfect and at times, have lapsed back into their old ways.
Simply put, if Cronulla get their defence right for 80 minutes, they are going to be hard to beat for any other team in this competition.
But that of course won't be the only deciding factor for the men from the Shire.
The way William Kennedy returns from injury will be critical to their overall fortunes, as will the performance of Nicho Hynes, who will go close to winning this year's Dally M Medal.
Maybe the most important area for the Sharks though will be the start, with Royce Hunt and Toby Rudolf up front. Hunt has been a monster in recent weeks, and will need to be again, albeit this time against a much stronger forward pack defensively. All of Reece Robson, Reuben Cotter and Jason Taumalolo are among the best defenders in the game.
Without the go-forward of Hunt and Rudolf early, the Shar's game plan will take an absolute beating.
It then goes without saying that the Cowboys must win that battle of the middle third early in the game to silence the Sharks' forwards, and move into the bench weapons where they may fancy that they have a slight advantage given the added minutes Cotter and Taumalolo will be able to play compared to Hunt and Rudolf.
The kicking game for the Cowboys will also be of vital importance.
It goes without saying for every team, but the Cowboys more so. They have built their game on patience with flamboyance mixed in, and finding the right balance between what Dearden and Townsend bring against a team who typically defend strongly and make strong decisions, will be possibly the biggest single determining factor to this game for the men from Townsville.
The other key factor in this one will be which back five does more work.
Both clubs have, at times, struggled to get the metres out of their respective back fives that they need, and if one or the other steps up in this game, it will take their side a long way towards the victory.
The history
The Sharks have the long-term wood over the Cowboys - of that there can be little doubt with 35 wins from the 53 games played between the sides since the Cowboys entered the competition.
But in Cronulla, it's one-way traffic, and that will be enough to concern any Cowboys fans.
The Cowboys have won just five games in the Shire, and although they haven't played there since 2019, they have lost all of their last five, with only two of those having a margin of under ten points.
In their single game this season, played in Townsville, the Sharks were able to walk away with a topsy-turvy victory which ultimately was the game which sealed second place.
Overall record: Played 53, Sharks 35, Cowboys 18
Overall record in Cronulla: Played 20, Sharks 15, Cowboys 5
Record in finals: Played 4, Sharks 2, Cowboys 2
Prediction
There isn't much at all to split these sides.
They both enter the finals in fine form, and with very little differences in the way they have gone about their business this season in turning themselves both into genuine premiership contenders.
What is clear is that the desperation will be clear to see in this game. The difference between a week off and a clash next week with a red-hot Roosters or Rabbitohs is enormous.
In fact, you could go as far as to say the chance of the loser being bounced out in straight sets is high.
That all said, the only thing to split these sides is the venue, so the Sharks should get up based on that alone, but this should be the match of the weekend.
Sharks by 2.
Key information
Kick-off: Saturday, September 10, 7:50pm (AEST)
Venue: PointsBet Stadium, Cronulla
Referee: Adam Gee
