St George are coming off a big season last year, Thunderbolts coach John Ireland said, finishing runners-up to Sydney Uni in Division 1.

“It will be a really good measuring stick for us,” Ireland said.

“Where we are at and where we need to improve to match it with some of the bigger metro teams.”

The Bolts are three from three and will head in confident.

“We’ve got to build on a few areas that we identified from the game against Port,” Ireland said.

One of those is their decision making in defence.

“Foul trouble hurt us,” he said.

“We had a lot of key guys that played minimal minutes.”

It enabled the Dolphins to stick with them. 

“We’ve got to be smarter in defence and play defensively as a whole unit and not as individuals and get ourselves into foul trouble,” he said.