A man who used to be one of their own is standing in the way of Melbourne Storm's path to a NRL grand final appearance.
James Maloney, who played four games for Storm in 2009, has been a key performer in the New Zealand Warriors' push for a maiden premiership title.
It has been a meteoric rise for the 25-year-old, who crossed the Tasman as an unheralded halfback, but is now one of the competition's premier five-eighths.
His development hasn't escaped the attention of Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy, the person that enticed Maloney south after he failed to make the grade at Parramatta.
"James was only here one year, but he was a tremendous player and great competitor," Bellamy said.
"He loves running that footy and he's really kicked on over there, he's had a wonderful season this year."
"It's really good to see him doing well because he's a tremendous young kid and was very popular here."
"Hopefully he won't be so popular on Saturday night."
Maloney is currently the NRL's third highest point-scorer with 192 points (nine tries, 77 goals and two field goals), but only needs four to pass Chris Sandow.
The Orange product played an important role in the Warriors comeback semi-final win over Wests Tigers last Friday night, slotting three of his four conversions in addition to a try.
Bellamy acknowledges Maloney will come into Storm's planning for Saturday night's cut-throat clash, but he won't be the only one.
"We always put a bit of work into who we are playing and try to nullify their strengths as best we can," Bellamy said.
"But most of it (our preparation) will be on what we need to do, we did some really good things against Newcastle and there were a couple of things we didn't do so well."
Bellamy took his side through a searching weekend session, a method he has used successfully ahead of preliminary finals in past years.
"We thought we needed a bit of a break after the (Roosters) game last Sunday (week) to freshen the players up and then start our preparation basically from Saturday," Bellamy said.
"We certainly had a good hit out, it certainly wasn't game intensity, but we tried to make it as close as we could and came through that really well."
"We'll have a couple of light sessions this week and hopefully be nice and fresh on Saturday night."