IS it confidence that counts at this time of year, or is it really arrogance?

There's three games left in the NRL season and chances are you saw as much football as I did over the weekend. In fact, you probably saw more because I ducked off to the men's room before Todd Carney's penalty goal at the SFS on Saturday night.

So I can't tell you anything about tactics. I won't bother telling you about injuries because you can read that elsewhere on this here interweb thingy.

But I can tell you about body language. About ‘vibe'. Over the past nine days I've been in the sheds of three of the four surviving teams and over the past 25 years I've been in plenty of September dressingrooms.

St George Illawarra types have a kind of calm confidence to them. But there's a siege mentality gathering strength and blowing in fast from the south.

Coach Wayne Bennett last Sunday said he made "no apologies'' for taking the kicks on offer from penalties - but no-one had asked for one. And Jamie Soward said ‘everyone bags us' for the same thing. No-one had had time to bag them because the game was just over.

This week, the Dragons will be disappointed if they are not called chokers, if preliminary final opponents Wests Tigers don't tease them like scrawny kids in a schoolyard.

Because St George Illawarra want that. They plan to feed ofF that. It's their modus operandi, especially designed for here and now: us against them.

I've not had the pleasure of visiting a Gold Coast dressingroom for a few weeks. They remind me of North Korea going into the soccer World Cup. They're still a bit of a mystery - even though there's no chance they'll fair as badly as Kim Jong Il's fellas.

What I mean is, everyone knows they're good (they have the best record against the other finals teams) - the mystery is why. No-one seems to be able to agree on that.

I would call their vibe neutral. They don't shut you out but they don't embrace you either. Their captain remains less than thrilled at being accused months and months ago of having a house built for him as a salary cap rort. Their coach and chief executive are friendlier than most of the players.

I think it's fair to say Friday night's first preliminary final in Brisbane is the greatest occasion in the history of Gold Coast sports. As they said when both Hull teams played in a Challenge Cup final, ‘will the last person out of town please turn out the lights?'.

The Roosters' reckon they have plenty of supporters in Queensland. Hopefully, more than they have in NSW based on the disappointing 23,459 roll-up against Penrith on Saturday night.

It's tough to put a finger on what's going on at Bondi. Their most jovial, good humoured individual after the 34-12 win over the Panthers was coach Brian Smith, who most people see as a stress-head.

Having come from last to a preliminary final, Smith knows he's done a good job. He won Dally M coach of the year. But what I sense in his charges is not pure excitement - there's also some trepidation.

The Roosters know they are not a great defensive side. They know it will come down to sheer determination if they are to win their next two games of rugby league. They and Gold Coast have great records for winning from behind at halftime - so will it be a contest to see who scores the least in the first 40?

Which brings us to Wests Tigers. When coach Tim Sheens starts his media conference after the 26-24 win in Canberra by saying: "I'm sorry for ruining your tips'', you know something is up.

Likewise, when captain Robbie Farah engaged Twitter pests and bagged by name journos who wrote about it ....

Wests Tigers don't care that they lost a 100-minute epic to Sydney Roosters. They don't care that a penalty milked by Bryce Gibbs got them past the Raiders. Deep down, I'm sure Gibbs would like to boast about it, in fact.

Unlike St George Illawarra, they know they are pretty damn exciting to watch. They have taken the high moral ground on just about every issue, to the point of claiming they were deliberating careful on where to play home finals with their fans in mind - when they had a contract at the SFS all along.

Wests Tigers know they are not lampooned like St George Illawarra, misunderstood like Gold Coast or doubted and occasionally undersupported like Sydney Roosters. They have the disposition of handsome politician ahead of a rigged election.

Which is to say, something more than confidence.

Arrogance doesn't have to be a negative force. In my experience, a team that slaps its critics with one hand and embraces them with the other has the balance about right for this time of year: "Just because they doubt us doesn't mean we shouldn't bring them along for the ride.''

And in 2010, that team is Wests Tigers.