St George Illawarra have been forced to confront their recent history of worrying late-season implosions as Gareth Widdop chases a title in what will be his NRL swansong.
Widdop is harbouring extra motivation heading into this year as he prepares to leave Australia at the end of the season to finish his career in the English Super League.
He already has a premiership ring from his time at Melbourne, but he burns to collect a second with his Dragons teammates before his departure.
He says for the last two years the Red V have had the team to go all the way, however consistency is a quality which has escaped them after suffering a post-Origin slump.
Last year they won just six of their last nine regular round matches - going from first to seventh in that period.
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And it has been similar in recent seasons under coach Paul McGregor - losing eight of their last 12 regular round matches in 2017, seven of nine in 2016 and nine of 13 the year prior.
Widdop wouldn't detail exactly how the squad addressed the issue but he said much of it centred around overcoming expectation.
"You have to address it because you can't work that hard in pre-season (to perform) for 75 per cent of the year," Widdop said.
"It's no secret it's happened a couple of times. It is something that you can't ignore and it's something we spoke about.
"The performance staff have gone away and come up with things they think can help us or minimise that chance again. As footballers, we spoke about what we need to do, done a few different little things at training."
Despite uncertainty around the availability of lock Jack de Belin, the Dragons are considered genuine top four contenders.
They have added playmaker Corey Norman to their roster and Korbin Sims shapes as a like-for-like replacement for Leeson Ah Mau.
Widdop doesn't hide that he wants to lift the Provan-Summons trophy one more time before departing for his country of birth.
"It's taken quite a while, and that's due to salary cap reasons, to get the team our coach wants," Widdop said.
"Over the last couple of years we've been building and we've certainly had that team that's capable of winning a premiership.
"Around the middle of the year we lost form, but in saying we found form throughout the finals. A few injuries, it hurts a little bit.
"Our squad hasn't got weaker, put it that way.
"That's our vision and our goal but there are a lot of things to happen before that. There's certainly no reason why we can't."
