Norths coach Zak Beer is confident finals - not Super experience - will be the difference come Saturday in the Shute Shield Final at Leichhardt Oval.
Beer's side returns to the Grand Final with 15 of the 23 that featured in last year's 17-15 defeat to Randwick.
Tickets to the Shute Shield Grand Final are available here.
They face an Easts side stacked with Super Rugby experience, with eight Waratahs and former Tonga prop Vunipola Fifita in the starting side.
“We’re almost your typical Shute Shield team over the last couple of days…most of our boys that work on job sites and sit in the office nine to five and then come into training," Beer told reporters.
“We have a couple of contracted guys with Hugh Sinclair the most experienced and the others in Henry (O’Donnell) and Max (Burey) who have played a couple of Super games but we’ve got the Shute Shield in these guys like Harry Burey, Sam Kitchen and ‘Sincs’ who played in the 2016 Grand Final and won 2017.
“That’s worth its weight in gold at the moment.”
This includes recent Wallaby debutant Darby Lancaster and former Clermont lock Miles Amateosero, who missed last week's win over Warringah.
“I haven’t seen a Shute Shield line-up for years with as many professionally contracted players as they’ve got, but they’re still a brilliantly coached team,” Beer notes.
“Ben’s (Badger) done a good job with them this year and they’re minor premiers for a reason, but certainly two different narrative storylines and teams coming together.”
Beer and the Norths side parked last year's Final loss as soon as the season started, but believe the win last week and their 90-minute epic against the Rats is proof that cohesion is king.
“I think there’s still a lot of familiarity in terms of the ground and day,” Beer added.
That experience is key in big games, but also the cohesion of the group, we’ve built this team deliberately over the last few years to build that cohesion ready for these big encounters.
“I think you’ve seen that shine through over the last couple of weeks in critical moments. The cohesion within the group, that’s not something you can just create overnight.”
