Walking into PointsBet Stadium as he will on Saturday, it may well feel like nothing's changed at all. The local derby's a sell-out well in advance of kickoff, with the Shire faithful getting behind a gritty team on the premiership march; it's like the 2016 party has just carried on.

And it was a party for Bird. The first three years of his career after shifting to the Sharks in 2015 were nothing but net. People questioned his brashness in departing the Dragons for their arch-rivals before even playing an NRL game, but he'd won a premiership and played State of Origin within two seasons.

Still, departing Shark Park at the end of the 2017 season to take up a four-year $4 million deal with the Broncos, he had no idea it'd be such a long road back - figuratively and literally.

Injuries, including two ACL tears, kept him to just 17 games in three years at the Broncos, none of which brought him back to the Shire. With the Sharks making Kogarah home due to renos on their patch last season, Bird's return year in Wollongong didn't include a drive along the Kingsway.

It makes Saturday's local derby something of a homecoming for the now 27-year-old, albeit in rival colours.

"I love Shark Park, I love the fans there, I love the club, it holds a special place in my heart, so going back will be really good," Bird said.

"I won a grand final six-seven years ago and it doesn't seem that long ago to be honest. It feels like I was just there yesterday really. I obviously can't say I've been having fun the whole time since I left, but time really does fly.

"I was just a kid who hadn't played first grade yet and I went to the Sharks for an opportunity. We had some good players there, Luke Lewis, Paul Gallen, Wade Graham, Mick Ennis, Benny Barba, Val Holmes... I don't think I've been part of a better team.

"That's nothing against the players I've played with since, but we just had a special bond up there. We all just became brothers and family and I think that's the big thing. If you want to go a long way you've got to be really close off the field.

"I've always said it, it was always my philosophy, you've got to be real tight off the field and trust each other off the field to trust each other on the field. We had that with that team.

"I know what the [Sharks] fans are like. They love their footy up there and they really get in behind the boys, so it's going to be a hard on one for us this week."

In hindsight, it's not difficult to see how a side featuring those names won the 2016 title. The names and the memories make it easy enough to forget that Bird inked a deal with a team that had finished with the wooden spoon a year earlier.

Hindsight also neglects the fact that, for decades, Cronulla was not seen as a place to go to in pursuit of premierships. When Bird went, people thought it was simply a quicker path to first grade. This weekend, all these years later, he's the only premiership-winner in a 17 that boasts a collective 2300 fist grade games.

Heading into Saturday's clash, Anthony Griffin's side faces a steep climb to stay in finals contention with five games remaining. Another season without finals would be the Dragons' ninth in the past 11 seasons, while there's little recruitment wriggle room for wholesale changes ahead of next season.

Read more: Dragons finals hopes dealt a major blow by fast-finishing Cowboys

Like the Sharks in 2015, it doesn't have the look of a club players would go to in order to win a premiership, but Bird says he wouldn't have inked a two-year contract extension earlier this year if he felt a title was beyond its reach.

"I wouldn't have signed here if I didn't think we were going to play finals because that's what I want to do, I want to win another grand final," Bird said.

"I know a lot of people will say 'you're not going to win one at the Dragons' but no one believed we were going to win it at the Sharks either. You can look at this club as a rebuild as well.

"I know we've got a good team and I know we can play finals footy, we're just letting ourselves down at the moment. If you look at our performances over the last few weeks, and over the year, the first halves we play like a top-eight team, if not a top-six ream, and in the second halves we play like a bottom-eight team.

"That's probably why we're in the situation we're in and the position we're in. We play some good footy and then we play crap footy. I don't know if it's a mental or attitude thing, but we just shoot ourselves in the foot.

"If we knew how to fix it we'd fix it, but it's something we need to address and it probably just comes down to consistency. It's let us down during the year."

Righting the ship against the high-flying Sharks is a tall order but, after months walking a top-eight tightrope, Bird says the tough task of making the playoffs is also now a simple one.

"We've still got five games left, there's hope we can play finals, it's just going to take some grit and some effort for us to get there," he said.

"We've got to win every game because if we don't, obviously, our season's over. You've got to look at it week by week, you can't look too far ahead. Five weeks ago I wasn't looking at finals, I was just looking at the team we were playing that week and trying to get the win over them.

"Now, when your season's on the line, you kind of look at the finals and think 'we have these five teams to go' but you've still got to go week in, week out. You can't go in thinking of the Raiders next week, or the Titans or the Tigers.

"You've got to take it day by day and week to week. I've got belief in our squad and in our team but, if it doesn't happen, we've done it to ourselves really. We've just got to play for 80 minutes, not 40 minutes."

Download the Illawarra Mercury news app in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Sign up for breaking news emails below ...