The Devils edged out Collegians via a Zac Greene field-goal  to claim the preseason silverware four weeks ago but McLeod says his side will need to go up a level against the Butchers.

“We used the preseason to give a lot of the young blokes a go and we challenged them from the start to play games to win and not treat anything as a trial,” McLeod said.

“It was good to play in a final and to have some scoreboard pressure and the boys came out and won at the back end.

“Collies are going to be better when we play them in a few weeks time ad Thirroul are going to be really good this week so we’re going to need to improve on our performance there.

“It’ll be a really physical game, they’ll play with a lot of energy and we’ll need to be really good to to beat them.”