"I was very fortunate to work under Wayne," Civoniceva said.

"He's a smart coach and I'm sure he's engineering everything towards the Dragons firing come that first semi-final."

Bennett's record heading into the semi-finals has taken a nosedive over the past decade.

In his first 13 years at the helm of the Broncos, Bennett's worst end to a season stood at four wins from the final six matches.

But since then he has failed to emulate that incredible feat, producing a four-out-of-six success rate only once in the past 13 years.

Despite the less-than-impressive record, Civoniceva described Bennett as the master of timing and said it was no coincidence he has guided his teams to 19 consecutive finals appearances.

"Wayne would always do that - he would train us really hard leading into semi-finals and sometimes that can have a negative effect on performances," he said.

"Because of the heavy workload your energy is probably not right going into games.

"Without knowing, I'm guessing he's worked them very hard over the last month or so and he'll probably look at backing them off for semi-final time like he used to with us.

"He's very smart in knowing what he needs to get out of his players."

While some have been prepared to write-off the Dragons' title chances after their 32-16 loss to the Raiders last weekend, Civoniceva remains wary.

"Regardless of whatever happened in the past, the strike power they have in the team is undeniable," he said. "I don't really buy into the criticism that has been pointed towards the team over the last few weeks.

"Although they have dropped a couple of games lately, I can see they are well primed for a good showing in the finals series."