They've been the surprise packets of the early season, but Illawarra League newcomers De La Salle will face the first major test of their credentials when they take on Thirroul on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In what will be a curtain-raiser to the Sharks-Roosters NRL clash at Pointsbet Stadium, De La will put their unbeaten start on the line against the perennial title contenders.
The ladder-leading Shire side has won their opening three matches against Corrimal, Cronulla Caringbah and Dapto by a combined 100-28 margin.
They saw off the Canaries 46-12 last start, continuing a trend of piling on late points, thus far easing coach Luke Manahan's fears over whether his side could make the instant jump to 80-minute football.
"Playing for the full 80 minutes has been the biggest [difference] because the Shire comp's only 70 minutes so that extra five minutes each half is quite big," Manahan said.
"Only having the eight interchanges is new for us as well. It's definitely a step up in speed and intensity so one of the biggest things is for us to play the long game and trust the process and the systems that we have.
"I really want us to get into that grind and be able to weather it through and we've been able to do that in the last couple of games. We've been tied up at halftime in a couple of them and we've come home strong which is really pleasing.
"We've got halves there [in Wyndham Peachey and Chaz Jarvis] that are controlling the game really well and finishing it off for us. We're starting to form some good combinations and I'm really looking forward to seeing what we can do and if we can keep getting in that grind, weathering that storm and finishing off games."
There's no other way to describe Thirroul's clash with Collegians last week than as a grind, the Butchers crawling home 2-0 on a heavy 11 at Gibson Park.
The conditions will be starkly different at Pointsbet Stadium, but Manahan is expecting the hard-nosed Butchers to try and pull his side into a similar slugfest.
"We've taken it game by game and week by week, but we've definitely been looking at this one as the biggest test," Manahan said.
"There's all the talk around Thirroul being the benchmark, having guys like Stevie Marsters and a few old heads in that team that have been around for a long time.
"We're really looking forward to it. It's a bit of an unknown, there wasn't much to go off last week and they obviously hadn't trained before their [first] game against Dapto, like all of us.
"We'll just play our game, focus on ourselves and trust that the way we've trained and how we've prepared will have us right to go."
Elsewhere Helensburgh will be looking to make it two wins on the trot against Corrimal after handily accounting for Cronulla Caringbah last week 32-6.
It was a solid bounce back from a first-up 54-10 pasting at the hands of Wests a fortnight earlier, a wake-up call for the Tigers according to coach Jason Raper.
"I think Wests was a reality check for us, we might have thought we were going OK in preseason, that we were fit and ready to go," Raper said.
"We just went down there against a really, really good well-drilled side and just didn't give ourselves a chance. We looked like a team that hadn't played a lot of footy together, and we were, but we also did a lot of things wrong.
"Wests are a side that's been together for five or six years now, they're really well-drilled and we came up against them on a pretty good surface was good to get early on. I think we needed it.
"To go up to Cronulla and, in particular only let one try in, was really satisfying. I think we left a few tries out there and we'll need to be crisper in out attack but defensively it was a really good response."
Raper said last week's win, and this Satuday's relocated clash with Corrimal at Bowral, are the games the Burgh must be winning to force their way into the finals picture.
"We're realistic about what we want to do and we want to be playing finals footy and give ourselves a crack," Raper said.
"We know there are sides down there like Wests, Collies, Thirroul that have been together a long time and they'll be right up there.
"We're going to be around about that bottleneck at fourth and fifth and we have to knock over those other teams there and turn up every week.
"If we don't turn up this week and get it done then last week means absolutely nothing so that's what we've spoken about."