'Never give up': Bennett factor still looms large for Katoa

“I don't even know if he's got my number saved, I might give him a ring during the week…  no, I'm just kidding,” Katoa joked about the ironic situation.

Unfortunately for Katoa and his teammates, they lost control of their own destiny when they suffered defeats to Sea Eagles, Broncos and Roosters in successive weeks.

However, with the team now back in the winner’s circle, Katoa said the players knew they could lift again to produce a performance they could be proud of, drawing from their experiences at the very start of the season.

Back then, they lost four games in a row, including a cyclone-affected Round 1 loss to Bennett's South Sydney team.

“I think we didn't lose any confidence in ourselves,” Katoa said of the most recent run of outs.

“If anything, we just needed to clean up some stuff in defence.

“I'm happy that we could come out (against the Titans) and have a performance that we're proud of and a performance that shows our confidence.

“We spoke about how at the start of the season, we were in the exact same position.

“We don't have to do anything special; we don't have to do anything outside of what we're doing, we have to trust what we're doing …

“A big driving factor of that has been Woolfy, he's been awesome and getting us to obviously look at the learnings from every single game but coming in with a smile and I feel ready to work hard.”

As the inaugural coach of the NRL side, Bennett moulded the identity of the team, something that Woolf and the squad have continued to develop.

“Just definitely not giving up, that's something Wayne always harped on about, when he was here for the two years," Katoa said.

"No matter what the result is, no matter the game, no matter what's going on in the game, never give up as a club, never let your team-mates down.

"And it's bigger than just us as a playing group. It's more (about) our family, it's more about our fans, and I'm happy that we could prove that."

In a similar scenario to last year, the Dolphins' finals hopes will be decided in the last round of the season.

Even if they come up short the Dolphins can take heart in getting so close after a horror run of injuries that includes season-ending ones t Tom Gilbert, Daniel Saifiti, Max Plath and Jack Bostock, while Herbie Farnworth remains sidelined with a hamstring tear.

“We've just got to focus on ourselves, obviously we're playing Canberra and they’re a great side and I'm sure whether they play the starting side or whether they rest some players, they're still a quality side," Katoa said. 

“You're not going to take anything away from Canberra. Any team that's coached by Ricky Stuart's going to come out there and have a performance that their club can be proud of.

“So for us, we know that whatever their team is, we're not focused on that.

“We need to focus on ourselves… a lot of learnings out of (today), we still let 20-odd points in and we're definitely happy with the result, but there's still a lot for us to work on as a team.

“No matter whether we have a chance to go play finals or whether we're just playing the last game of the season, we're going to put on a performance that our club can be proud of and our fans can be proud of as well."