Written by: Steven Williams

Need convincing that semi finals football has arrived? Then have to look at the script for this Saturday night's match at Aussie Stadium.

Arch rivals St George Dragons and the Cronulla Sharks are set to rip into other. In what promises to be one the years most torrid matches, both sides have been gearing up for a classic sudden death encounter.

There'll be no love lost in this local derby between these two neighbouring footballing districts.

In what has been a season of underachievement, the Dragons have suddenly hit form with consecutive wins over reigning premiers Newcastle. The Sharks on the other hand, after being one of the high flyers of 2002, have gone into a slump with two straight losses to the Roosters.

Dragon’s coach Andrew Farrar has disregarded this recent form and thinks the Sharks will start favourites, the Sharks having won both encounters between these two teams in 2002.

"It will be a tough game. Their last two games haven’t been sudden death so you’d expect them to lift for a sudden death semi," Farrar said.

Farrar believes the Dragons' defence has improved out of sight in recent weeks and this will help them in countering Cronulla's much publicised 'flat style' of attack.

Meanwhile, the pre-match intensity hasn't lost anything following comments yesterday from Cronulla forward, Chris Beattie.

Beattie openly declared he wasn’t scared of the Dragons front row and suggested Jason Ryles and Luke Bailey were overrated.

"They don’t scare me, the media builds them both up [Ryles and Bailey] but there’s a hell of a lot of hard front rowers running around and I wouldn’t say they’re any better or any worse than anyone else," Beattie said.

Saints and Sharks have met twice before in finals football. In 1973 (won by Cronulla 18-0) and in 1999 (won by Saints 24-8).

Since 1967, when Cronulla entered the competition, the two sides have met 69 times and the overall figures for both sides throw up a unique statistic:
Won: 33
Lost: 33
Drawn: 3

Trivia aside, its obvious that in 35 years of Rugby League, neither side has given an inch and that in itself paves the way for a nail biting finish on Saturday night.

Head to head in 2002:
Round 1: Sharks won 24-18
Round 13: Sharks won 34–13

TEAMS:

DRAGONS: Ben Hornby, Wise Kativerata, Mark Gasnier, Lee Hookey, Leo Clarke, Trent Barrett (c), Willie Peters, Jason Hooper, Lance Thompson, Justin Smith, Jason Ryles, Mark Riddell, Luke Bailey. Subs: Craig Stapleton, Nathan Tutt, Shane Millard, Jason Kent, Chris Leikvoll, Brent Kite (two to be omitted).

SHARKS: David Peachey (c), Matthew Rieck, Chris McKenna, Paul Franze, Paul Mellor, Matthew Johns, Brett Kimmorley, Nick Graham, Phil Bailey, Matt Bickerstaff, Chris Beattie, Dean Treister, Jason Stevens. Subs: Danny Nutley, Dean Bosnich, Karl Lovell, Pat Gibson.

Aussie Stadium (SFS)
21 September 2002
Kickoff: 7:30PM
Referee: Bill Harrigan

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