KEY POINTS:
Emotion really does play a big part in these end of season games, where careers can be written in legend or reduced to dusty memory.
Tonight one legend will celebrate making the grand final while another will end his career as a loser, if just in one, albeit important, game.
Steve Menzies can match Terry Lamb's all-up premiership record of 349 games if the Sea Eagles make the grand final. Ruben Wiki sits on 307 games. Both are irreplaceable.
They first played against each other in 1992 when Wiki was Junior Kiwis centre outside Tana Umaga and Menzies came on as a replacement at wing for the Junior Kangaroos. They have both vowed to congratulate each other regardless of the result tonight.
The Warriors vice-captain is cagey when asked where his future lies, saying he's still looking at opportunities.
He is an inspiration to the younger Warriors, in particular, both for his professionalism in approach and for his quiet words of encouragement. He will not have wanted them thinking about what happens when he leaves nor that it might be his last hurrah.
He has been playing like a spring chicken and will need to continue that tonight in a game expected to start at a frantic pace.
If the Warriors keep up, they will induce a sense of frustration that will force Manly out of the pattern that has worked for them, and therein lies the opportunity to put them away.
Referees boss Robert Finch has warned that grapple tackles will be punished so there should be no slowing of the play-the-ball.
Manly centre Steve Bell had a fitness test yesterday morning but is likely to be given until today to see if his calf muscle tear has sufficiently repaired - that seems 50/50.
Adam Cuthbertson was the fifth man named on the Eagles bench, the options to keep him and shift Menzies to the backs as in recent games or bring in a specialist back and drop Cuthbertson.
Otherwise the starting sides will be as named mid-week. Grant Rovelli and Epalahame Lauaki will be the pair to drop from the six-man interchange the Warriors named.
