The Dolphins had spent the best part of four seasons winning over neutrals as the likeable if unserious entertainers of the NRL, with their fetching red jerseys and TikTok-friendly try celebration. “Phins Up”, as the children say.

But when English centre Herbie Farnworth took to the air against the Roosters three weeks ago, the stakes rose with him. Chasing a kick from Dolphins bandmaster Isaiya Katoa, he soared above Roosters captain James Tedesco to change the club’s fate. By half-time the Phins had put on four tries, all coming down Farnworth’s left side, for a match-winning lead.

Now, the only thing standing between the Dolphins and a first grand final is that same Roosters side. The expansion club’s continued interest into October would be a surprise not only to the NRL, but Farnworth’s parents Richard and Joanne.

The Lancashire family will be in Australia for Christmas, but will not be able to attend the grand final, even if the Dolphins make it. “Unfortunately this year we’re actually in the Maldives,” she says. “We booked it in January this year, we never even really gave it a thought that they’d do so well.”

The Dolphins’ local support is already amassing, though. Chief executive Terry Reader was one of 4,000 people who watched the team train on Monday. “Where we’ve come in the four years, we had a plan, we had a strategy, and it’s coming together, and now we’re 80 minutes away from a grand final,” the man behind the team’s successful expansion bid in 2021 told Channel Nine.

From an empty squad to one bursting with pizazz. From a smart but modest base in Redcliffe, to a first home final at Suncorp Stadium. From pretender to contender. Broncos begone, last year forgotten: Brisbane has become Phinland.

The blueprint for how they got there will to be copied. Reader installed Wayne Bennett as the club’s inaugural coach, but with Kristian Woolf – a proven leader at international level with Tonga and in the Super League – appointed assistant with an orderly transition plan in place and enacted last season. They initially brought in established forwards like Felise Kaufusi and Jesse and Kenny Bromwich, who ensured the side had a platform to compete each week.

They backed halfback prodigy Isaiya Katoa who has become the likely successor to Nathan Cleary’s throne as the game’s best halfback, and their backline – led by inaugural fullback Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, and augmented by the likes of Farnworth and Selwyn Cobbo in recent years – is not just the most exhilarating in the competition: they are downright the best.

The recipe has left the Dolphins one win shy of 50 after just 96 NRL matches. Melbourne Storm won the premiership in their second year of existence, but in the modern NRL the Dolphins’ near-instant success is almost as impressive. Without the kind of tax concessions enjoyed in Port Moresby or any salary cap relief, the club has set a high bar for the next clubs in line, the Perth Bears and PNG Chiefs.

The Dolphins’ first match was against the Roosters, who they upset in round one of the 2023 season. It is fitting they meet the Sydney club again with a place in the grand final on the line. The significance of that victory three weeks ago cannot be overstated.

At the time, the Dolphins had just reeled off five wins against the NRL’s lower-middle class, but met Sydney’s establishment club just as the business end of the season was beginning. There were plenty of doubts – it was the NRL’s newest entrant’s first match against a top-four aspirant since the Sharks had swum rings around the Dolphins in July, beating them an embarrassing 66-0.

But Farnworth’s try set the Dolphins on their path towards the grand final. In recent weeks the wins have kept coming, and the upset of the Warriors in New Zealand secured the club a place in its first preliminary final. Suddenly, the Dolphins are being tipped by many as the team best placed to knock off the mighty Panthers for the premiership.

Few will watch more closely than those at The Old Bridge Inn in Barrowford, an hour’s drive north of Manchester in the UK. That’s the rugby league-loving establishment with a signed Herbie Farnworth jersey on the wall, 500 yards from the family home.

“It’ll be about eleven o’clock in the morning here, so we’ll watch it,” Joanne says, before qualifying her statement. “I can’t actually watch the game because I get too nervous. I’m usually making sandwiches or something but listening to it in the background. I prefer to watch it when it’s finished.”

She had travelled with a 17-year-old Farnworth to Australia for two months to help him settle when he first signed for the Broncos. Almost 10 years later, her son is almost certain to be recognised as the Dally M centre of the year this season.

That accolade would only increase speculation about where he might play when his Dolphins’ contract expires at the end of next year. “He’s very happy there,” Joanne says. “They all get along, there’s no rivalry or anything, they’re just one big happy family and you can see that when you watch them play.”