The Dolphins are through to the preliminary finals after staging a dramatic comeback win over the New Zealand Warriors on Saturday evening in Auckland.
Here are all the key talking points from the game, with the Warriors now facing the prospect of going out in straight sets when they face the Newcastle Knights next weekend.
The Warriors need a starting change for big games
The Warriors have one of the competition's elite middle third groups.
Erin Clark is on track to win lock of the year yet again, while Mitchell Barnett and James Fisher-Harris are both Origin-level players and beyond.
But what they lose when the bench starts coming into the game is simply too great to ignore.
If you based the contest on Saturday off the first 25 or so minutes, the Auckland-based side were going to run away with a comprehensive win.
Instead, the moment Barnett and Fisher-Harris were substituted off, things turned.
That's not a knock on the likes of Tanner Stowers-Smith and co, but the experience drop off is enormous.
Jackson Ford's ankle injury is a major cause for concern to the Warriors, but coach Andrew Webster probably also needs to think about whether one of his starting middles should come off the bench, to spread the effort and intensity of guys who know how to win throughout the game.
The Dolphins may be too inconsistent to win the competition
The Dolphins have done it again.
This team don't know, seemingly, how to play for 80 minutes, but it doesn't matter when you're good enough to win it in a ten-minute burst.
Scoring just one try through the first hour, the Dolphins, with a lack of big game experience, were playing exactly like that would suggest.
Dropped balls, dumb attacking decisions, poor in defence at times. They were just not putting it together.
And then, just before the hour mark, something clicked. They got early ball to their threats in the outside backs, ran the Warriors ragged and scored three tries, nearly more too without the bunker overruling, in a 15-minute block.
That was ultimately the difference, with the Dolphins closing out a ten-point win.
In fairness to the Redcliffe-based outfit, they kept things tight while things weren't working in attack, but if they are going to go with potentially the Panthers in the grand final, or even get past their preliminary final opponent, then finding some consistency is non-negotiable.
You only need to look at the 66-0 loss to the Sharks earlier in the year to know what happens when they don't manage to grind through their attacking inconsistencies.
Warriors can't win the competition without Halasima
There wasn't much the Warriors could do about it when Leka Halasima was ruled out in the minutes before kick-off with a hamstring problem picked up in the warm-up, but that doesn't mean you can't take lessons from it.
Namely, that Adam Pompey is not Leka Halasima.
Let's ignore the bone-headed sin bin for a minute where he lined up a shoulder charge from 15 metres away and made high contact that was lucky to only be a sin bin.
Instead, let's look at what the Warriors missed.
On countless times they would go left, and where Halasima would have probably broken a tackle or made post-contact yards, Pompey just didn't have the ability to do the same.
The game plan was set for Halasima to run riot, and he is the Warriors best attacking weapon, so it needs to be.
The Warriors have an excellent team, as evidenced by the fact they gained the most votes of any club in Zero Tackle's NRL MVP this year, but also lack X-Factor, with no players in the top ten, and only one in the team of the year - that being Erin Clark.
Halasima is that X-Factor that you can't win a competition about.
Herbie Farnworth is the best centre in the NRL, and it's not even close
Herbie Farnworth was the Dolphins best during the first half, and then the game's best during the second half on Saturday evening.
He just took his game to another level, as he has done in almost every game he has played this year.
The centre is the best three-quarter in the game, and it's just not even close.
Yes Kotoni Staggs, Stephen Crichton, Bradman Best - they are all very good players. They are not Herbie Farnworth.
The things he does with the ball in hand are not replicated anywhere in the competition, and his defence is tremendous.
He made a ridiculous 14 tackle breaks against the Warriors, and was by a long way the man of the match.
He will be the key if the Dolphins are going to go through their preliminary final and be a chance of winning the competition.
Luke Metcalf must play once fit
Earlier, we spoke about the Warriors' lack of X-Factor.
Another player who brings that in spades is Luke Metcalf.
The halfback is the Warriors' best attacking weapon by a very long way. It was evident last year, and again when he made a brief return between injuries towards the back-end of the season.
If he is fit in time for the end of the year, he must play.
The Warriors can't win the competition if he isn't on the park.
