Talk of a fairytale NBL season doesn't justify the hard work Wollongong has put into pulling itself from the brink of extinction to contesting a grand final series, according to Hawks captain Mat Campbell.
The Hawks were virtually out of business at the end of last season Campbell's community-led campaign kept them afloat.
Now they are out to stop Perth Wildcats winning their fifth championship ahead of Game 1 of the Grand Final series at Challenge Stadium.
Top-two finishers the Wildcats and Hawks have beaten Gold Coast and Townsville respectively to set-up the Grand Final series starting on Friday night in Perth.
The so-called Wollongong Cinderella story has gathered momentum during the season and has been imposing during Grand Final week.
But Campbell, the 2000/01 championship captain puts Wollongong's success down to its hard work and he's not surprised to be playing in the decider.
"It's not a fairytale. We're in a real life situation where we can achieve something that we set out to nine months ago - to ultimately holding the trophy up above our heads at the end of the season," Campbell said after arriving in Perth.
"There's been a lot of things to come back to that Cinderella story, but from within the group we've had the belief and that has shown in the way we've played all year. It's not a surprise to be here."
The Wildcats have only lost twice at home this season and are hot favourites, but coach Rob Beveridge has enormous respect for his opposition mentor Gordie McLeod and knows his team will need to be switched on.
Beveridge expects the series to be pushed to three matches and is confident the Wildcats can prevail if they stick with what they have done during the season.
"If we won here in Perth it would be a pretty big party, but I would be happy to win in two and I'm sure Gordie is exactly the same. Right now it's all about Game 1 and we are very focused on the first game," Beveridge said.
"When you come into this situation you don't want to change things and we have to continue playing pressure defence, pushing the ball and playing our style of game. The real key to us is definitely playing that up-tempo style."
Perth's home court advantage will be significant given away teams have won just 32 of 117 NBL matches this season.
Wollongong has won just three of 15 games on the road this season, but McLeod feels his team has been better than the record suggests and with a combined 1884 games of NBL experience compared to Perth's 1173, the veteran coach is confident of a strong showing.
"It's been hard to win on the road in the NBL this year, but statistics say that that's got to change at some point and there's no better time to do that than in a grand final series," McLeod said.