The past and the future of the Dolphins and Broncos to collide in the NRL's first Battle of Brisbane

On Friday night, rugby league in Brisbane will change forever.

The Broncos — who have ruled the city with an iron fist for almost four decades — have to now share their turf with Wayne Bennett's upstart Dolphins and the two sides will meet for the very first time in a top-of-the table clash with Brisbane bragging rights on the line.

With the match being sold out long before game day — and both teams fighting to be the first team to strike an on-field blow against the other — it's hard to escape the feeling that the sport and the city are about to begin something special.

The Broncos are fighting hard to regain something they lost while the Dolphins are holding tight to something they've found.

They've both walked long roads in different directions to be here but, after Friday, nothing will be the same. It's the end of one way and the start of another. Once the whistle goes, they'll always be together.

A place you never really leave

Petero Civoniceva is one of Brisbane's greatest-ever players, with the tough front-rower playing in three premierships sides in the late 90s and early 2000s. He is still a Broncos ambassador today but, before and after he wore their colours, the Redcliffe junior was a Dolphin.

"It's home. It's been home since my parents arrived from Fiji in 1976. Dad played for Redcliffe rugby club. I went to school there and that's where I fell in love with rugby league," Civoniceva said.

"It's a club everyone is passionate about. Everyone has memories of the Dolphins club, the Dolphins players, the great Dolphins games that took place at the local ground, whether that's Dolphin Oval or the older days, at the Redcliffe showground.

"It's local memories for local families. That's why there's been so much excitement in seeing the Dolphins NRL bid come to fruition and to see them start the way they have has been amazing."

Civoniceva played his last game as a young man for the Dolphins in 1994, before embarking on the long career that ended with 309 NRL appearances, three premierships and a combined 78 caps for Queensland and Australia.

By the end of 2012 — when he finally retired from the big leagues after doing just about everything a man do in rugby league — there was only one place left to go: It was time to come home.

"When I hung the boots up in the NRL at the end of 2012, I thought it'd be fitting to go back and have one more year wearing the mighty Dolphins colours and sing that club song again," Civoniceva said.

"Des Webb — an iconic figure of the Redcliffe Dolphins who is no longer with us — he had such a huge impact in the club.

"I remember sitting in his office when he was looking for my transfer papers to send me to the Broncos and he said, 'Mate, you have to make sure you come back and finish your time here' and, whenever I saw him in passing over the years, he'd always remind me.

"It was an amazing season, I was so fortunate to be a part of it."

That's how Civoniceva — with a good 20 years on some of his teammates and opponents — had one last year for the Dolphins in the Queensland Cup. He's a Bronco, and always will be, but the Dolphins are a part of him as well, because home is a place you never really leave.

The way Civoniceva talks about the Dolphins makes them seem more like a country football club, where the team becomes a rallying point for the entire community, something life is built around in the best way possible.

That's how it was for another Redcliffe boy who went on to greatness with Brisbane, Brent Tate. He's another Queensland and Australian stalwart and he doesn't know if any of that could have happened were it not for the Dolphins.

"My whole childhood in Redcliffe revolved around that Leagues Club. We trained there, we played there, we'd go watch the Queensland Cup of a weekend. It was just a big part of my childhood and a lot of memories are with the Dolphins," Tate said.

"It meant a lot for the people, and still does. It's a big part of a lot of people's lives and not just from a football point of view. It's a huge part of the fabric of that place. I don't know if I would have had the career I would have had if I hadn't been at Redcliffe.

"I always feel so indebted to them for what they did for me as a kid and I'd love to think that, one day, I could go back and give back in some way. I don't know what that would look like, but I have a sense that I need to do that at some stage in my life."

That local feel has been part of the Dolphins great success in the early days of their NRL life under Wayne Bennett.

They're not called Redcliffe — even though they play at Redcliffe, train at Redcliffe and their team song declares they're the Dolphins from Reddy — but they've been infused with the spirit of the older club, the one that's existed since 1947, the one that played in the Brisbane Rugby League for decades and the Queensland Cup after that.

There is an authenticity here, a street cred that any new franchise in any sport would kill for.

It's helped the club feel old and new at the same time, blending the excitement of something fresh with the comfort of tradition.

Their win over the Roosters in Round 1 was the dawn of a new era, but one that felt draped in the best parts of the past. They are three games in and it feels like we've known them forever.

It probably helps that they've won three in a row. As the Broncos know, more than anybody else, winning makes you handsome.

It's hard to be a prince in this city

Bennett's first stint with the Broncos from 1988 to 2008 is the masterpiece of his coaching career, an unparalleled run of successes in the modern game that may never be beaten.

The premierships they won under Bennett and the galaxy of stars who became rugby league legends under his watch gave birth to a sense of Broncos exceptionalism the club still chases to this day.

It's not a light thing to carry. Tate was playing for Queensland and Australia by the time he was 20 and it still wasn't easy for him.

Likewise, it took Civoniceva plenty of time to feel like he belonged in the famous colours.

"It was every boy's dream to get that opportunity. It was daunting when you first walk in the doors and you see your heroes walk around the dressing room. It's a fight to want to be a part of that, to belong," Civoniceva said.

"I reckon was only in my fifth and sixth year — after I'd spent some time in first grade and cemented a spot — that I really felt like a Bronco. You have to earn everyone's respect.

"That was something that was instilled in me by Wayne. He wanted the very best of you on and off the field and you [had] to pay your dues to win a Broncos jersey. You [had] to earn that right."

Because of the mythical qualities created by those glorious times, everything is bigger in Brisbane when it comes to the Broncos.

Their stars shine brighter, their highs are higher, their lows are lower and, when exposed, their flaws are attacked more mercilessly because they are the Broncos and success is not expected, it is demanded. It happened before, so it must happen again.

That's the price of being larger-than-life, as Brisbane were for so long. When you're the princes of the city everyone is with you until they're all against you — but only until they're all with you again.

Even Bennett, the architect of the past to which the club is so enthralled, couldn't escape it.

He is the greatest coach the Broncos have ever had, or will ever have, and they decided he was not the man for them, twice.

So it's no small thing that this Broncos team, under Kevin Walters, feels like they can be a part of that club's legend.

We are only three games in but they feel like they have it in them to be exceptional, perhaps not for a decade like the Brisbane teams of old, but at least for a little while.

"They have a great 1-17, there's so much talent and I think the only ones who can stop Brisbane this year is Brisbane," Tate said.

"So long as those young kids don't get ahead of themselves, they'll be one hell of a team to beat this year."

There is power and panache all over the field for Walters and, in new fullback Reece Walsh, they at last have a star who wears the weight of expectations so lightly it's like they're not even there.

Three straight wins, including one over Penrith, has the Bronco faithful feeling a little different: Which is to say, they feel the same as they did in those old times.

It is still early days but, if you can't dream when your team is on top of the ladder, then when can you?

Maybe the stories we all remember from Brisbane's golden times can all be true again. The Broncos are a team on the rise and one that will be utterly without mercy, for the Dolphins, or otherwise.

"The Broncos will be buoyed by what they've achieved this year, they're sitting at the top of the ladder and they'll want to stay there," Civoniceva said.

"They're calling this the Battle of Brisbane but, when Reece Walsh scored that try (against the Dragons), he indicated that this was a Broncos town."

A new history begins

It is hard to pinpoint exactly what a rivalry means before it has begun. After all, there will be so much of both teams in the other when they collide on the Lang Park turf.

It's a strong foundation, because a true rivalry is built on a shared history, but — for it to evolve into what it can become — there needs to be some games, some wins that are prized forever and some losses that are never forgotten.

That's when the action is the juice and we have something special on our hands.

This was always going to be a big game, because something can only happen for the first time once, but the NRL should be down on its knees in thanks that this is a top-of-the-table clash, because it gives the match an even greater sense of occasion.

It feels down-home and local, like the Dolphins. It feels city-wide and larger than life, like the Broncos. It is not hyperbole to say this might be the biggest regular season match of the year for the sport.

The result may well rest with Bennett, as so much of Brisbane's past did and the Dolphins' future does.

His would have been underdogs anyway but — with Felise Kaufusi suspended and rookie half Isaiya Katoa in doubt — the odds are even more stacked against the super coach. But, after what the Dolphins have done in the past three weeks, good luck finding a doubter.

"For Wayne, the bigger the occasion, the more simple the process would become," Civoniceva said.

"He never over-complicates it and, for those big games, you can waste a lot of energy thinking about what might happen and you just have to be able to handle it on the day and stay as relaxed as possible.

"It's a wonderful occasion. It's a big opportunity for both sides who have done so well to start the year."

Walters knows plenty about big Broncos occasions. He's one of the club's greatest and most-successful players and was brought back to the club to bring about a return to the old ways.

Before this season, it had been a bit of a bumpy road. They haven't played finals under his watch.

But derbies are more about feelings than they are about facts and Walters seems to have found the right balance between passion and percentages this year.

"He's played in a lot of big games and he's coached a few of them now as well, so I think it'll be like Wayne. If he's learned anything, he'll know he doesn't need to build the match up because there's already enough pressure and expectation externally," Tate said.

"I'm sure Kev will play it with a straight bat. He'll treat it like a normal game because, when the players are out there, they'll know it's not. They don't need to be told."

Walters, like Bennett and the Broncos and the Dolphins — and everything else that feels true and good and right when two teams come together — draws strength from his yesterdays. All you have in these games is what you take with you.

When the Broncos and Dolphins meet in the centre of Lang Park, with all of Brisbane and Redcliffe in the stands — and the whole footy world watching — what has already happened can help them, but it won't save them. It cannot create victory any more than it can create something new.

Only the game can do it, only the players who try to hammer their future into reality and the fans who hail or curse them as they do it.

When it's over, it becomes a story we all tell together, which becomes memory — until it's time to do it all again, and again, and again, until we don't remember a time without the Brisbane derby:  until it's just become a part of us.

This is history happening right in front of us and a reminder that history isn't always about the past.