He'll be without the core of Illawarra talent he's built his tenure as Malta Test coach around, but Aaron McDonald is quietly confident the Knights can pull off an upset against Lebanon on Wednesday night.
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The Knights and Cedars will face off at Belmore Sports Ground for the Elias-Fenech Trophy, the latter without coach Michael Cheika after a flight cancellation saw the former Wallabies mentor forced to return to Argentina on Tuesday.
It will see an all-star support cast of Robbie Farah, Matt King and Jake Friend pulling the strings against McDonald, who's 8-2 since taking the Malta coaching reins.
A huge part of that success has centred on Illawarra-South Coast talent, with the likes of Blake Phillips (Collegians), Justin Rodrigues (Wests), Jono Dallas (Jamberoo) and Emmanuel Sultana (Shellharbour) all regulars in the nation's Australian outings.
All bar Dallas will be absent this week, with work commitments leaving Phillips and Sultana unable to take the field while Rodrigues is still on the comeback from a head knock suffered against Collegians three weeks ago.
Dallas is also in doubt, with a nasty back knock picked in the Roos loss to Kiama last weekend putting him at long odds to partner former Panthers star Jarrod Sammut in the halves.
"The Illawarra connection probably won't be there which is pretty disappointing considering those guys have been a really big part of what we've done since I've taken over," McDonald said.
"Missing someone like Blake Phillips in the middle and the experience of J-Rod and Jono is going to be a pretty big loss for us, but we've replaced them with some good young kids coming through Flegg systems. I'm sure we'll hold our own.
"I've got a core group of players that's been fairly good over that time. We've got a couple of newbies coming in tomorrow night that, if they're not making their debut, will be in their first or second Test match.
"Having Jarrod Sammut there obviously adds some class and some footy brains. Certainly the boys know what I like these days so we can roll into it pretty easily.
"Short-term coaching's very different from that week in, week out kind of footy, but I'm pretty happy with where we're at heading into it."
It will be a World Cup warm-up for the Cedars having qualified for the end-of-year tournament where they could well have the likes of Mitch Moses, Alex Twal and Adam Doueihi.
Wednesday's side won't be as star-studded, but McDonald feels the the coaching line-up, even without Cheika, will have Lebanon well-drilled.
"They're in a similar boat to what we are having a lot of NSW Cup, [Ron] Massey Cup, Sydney Shield-type players," McDonald said.
"They've got the Robinson brothers (Travis and Reece) so there's some NRL experience there and they've got a few older guys that have been around a while and been through World Cup qualifiers for them.
"You've had Michael Cheika there and you add Robbie Farah, Matt King, Jake Friend, there's certainly a bit of footy knowledge behind their preparation. I think they'll be all right."
An IRL 'affiliate' nation, Malta is eyeing a push at the next World Cup, for which qualifying must come predominantly through Europe.
"What we need to do is win some qualifying games over in Europe and work through the system over there," McDonald said.
"They have a three-team competition on the island and I'm hoping to get over there next year at some stage to some work with those local guys.
"With the way we're going with some young kids coming through I certainly think we'll have the ability to be competitive against the bottom half of those World Cup teams."
For now, claiming silverware named in honour of great rivals Benny Elias and Mario Fenech is a juicy enough carrot.
"It's massive in terms of what they represent for their own countries and what they represent as far as the NRL," McDonald said.
"They battled through what I think was the toughest period of the NRL growing up watching those two go at it.
"They're well known in the Maltese and Lebanese communities and we're pretty excited to have them both involved and to be playing for a shield named after two of the greats of the NRL."
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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.
