CORRIMAL knocking off one of the vaunted 'big three' is looking more and more a matter of when, not if. It's why Collegians utility Jack Cross says the Dogs won't be letting the Cougars slip under their guard on their own patch on Saturday.
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Looking to end a near-decade long finals drought this year, the Cougars notched an important two points with a come-from-behind 22-20 win over Dapto last week.
In a five-team draw, it puts them two wins clear in the race for fourth spot and a finals berth, but it's much-improved performances against the big guns that have turned heads.
The Dogs' scheduled first outing against the Cougars was rained out a month ago, but Cross said his side isn't silly enough to take them lightly.
"Over the last few years, probably for a long time now, they've been the team that always seem to get one or two [off the top-four teams] throughout the season," Cross said.
"We haven't played them yet, the first one was rained out. You can obviously take a bit away from watching them but we don't know too much about them.
"They had a good win against Dapto last week and earlier on in the year they've gone toe-to-toe with Thirroul and Wests for long periods of the game. We're definitely wary of it.
"If we go out there and think it's all just going to happen for us it's not going to go well for us. We're determined to make sure we're not that scalp and it ends up being someone else."
Nathan Fien's side will be looking to set their final tilt at the minor premiership in motion after defeats to Wests and Thirroul in their past two outings against top-two rivals. It's a lull for a side that was the early-season pacesetter.
"Looking back to the 2019 [premiership] season, we dropped the first round against Thirroul and Wests that year," Cross said.
"We spoke about it before the season started, we wanted to make sure we started hard and got stuck into them early. We did that and we were very confident going into both [the past two] games against those sides.
"The Wests one probably hurt a bit more, we didn't put our best foot forward that day. I thought the effort was back in that Thirroul game but they've set the standard so far and we need to take it up a notch heading into the back end.
"We finally get to string a few games together now. It feels like every time we've had a couple in a row this year we've had to have a couple off and start again. We go right through the draw now, five games in a row, which is unreal."
Cougars hooker Declan Purcell says his side rocked up to Dapto Showground last week knowing exactly what was at stake, eking out an important win despite missing the jump.
"We were fully conscious of the fact we needed to win that game to have any sort of finals hopes," Purcell said.
"It was a poor start from us ... tip of the hat to Dapto, they played tremendous. They came out all guns blazing and we were a bit shell-shocked, they had a couple of tries in 10 minutes.
"We just got back to playing the ball fast, getting to our kicks and simple footy and it got us back into the game and eventually got us the win. Considering all the injuries we had, we've got a couple of boys coming back this week, we can definitely take a lot away from it."
A graduate of the St George Dragons junior reps, Purcell has shifted between dummy half and the halves to cover the devastating loss of regular No. 7 Tom Maloney in recent weeks.
Harry Rudd returns in the halves this week - playing in his favoured slot - with his side desperate to break a duck against the top-three sides.
"It's probably our second halves we need to work on," he said.
"It's just been some composure and some key errors that have cost us games. Thirroul and Wests have had that edge there.
"They're all going really good this year and I think it's just about focusing on ourselves and we can scalp one of them for sure. I fee like we still haven't played our best game by a long shot."
Wests host Dapto at Parrish Park in the weekend's other fixture.
Cougars hooker Declan Purcell says his side rocked up to Dapto Showground last week knowing exactly what was at stake, eking out an important win despite missing the jump.
"We were fully conscious of the fact we needed to win that game to have any sort of finals hopes," Purcell said.
"It was a poor start from us ... tip of the hat to Dapto, they played tremendous. They came out all guns blazing and we were a bit shell-shocked, they had a couple of tries in 10 minutes.
"We just got back to playing the ball fast, getting to our kicks and simple footy and it got us back into the game and eventually got us the win. Considering all the injuries we had, we've got a couple of boys coming back this week, we can definitely take a lot away from it."
A graduate of the St George Dragons junior reps, Purcell has shifted between dummy half and the halves to cover the devastating loss of regular No. 7 Tom Maloney in recent weeks.
Harry Rudd returns in the halves this week - playing in his favoured slot - with his side desperate to break a duck against the top-three sides.
"It's probably our second halves we need to work on," he said.
"It's just been some composure and some key errors that have cost us games. Thirroul and Wests have had that edge there.
"They're all going really good this year and I think it's just about focusing on ourselves and we can scalp one of them for sure. I fee like we still haven't played our best game by a long shot."
Wests host Dapto at Parrish Park in the weekend's other fixture.
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Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
