Rabbitohs assistant coach Jason Demetriou says it’s “remarkable” to have reached this stage of the NRL preliminary finals with nearly a full team.

He said it was a different story last year, like “chalk and cheese” when the club finished sixth and they would have been “lucky to field a team” even they had made the grand final.

He gave an insight into how they are preparing ahead of the clash against Manly on Friday night.

“I think for us it’s about believing in our game, and I think it’s something we have built over the last 3 months and understanding this is what we are about and this is how we get results,” he told Peter Psaltis.

“We’ve really fine-tuned that over the last 6 weeks and we saw that on evidence against Penrith a couple of weeks ago, and now it’s our chance to go there and do that again.”

Press PLAY below to hear more about the team line-up

Image: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images