Fiery Cronulla forward Andrew Fifita has pledged to make Wests Tigers pay for letting him go when he confronts his old club in an explosive confrontation on the opening weekend of the NRL season.
Fifita and Tigers team-mate Bryce Gibbs were forced out of Concord to make way for new recruit Adam Blair and time has done little to heal the wounds.
Fifita was angry he was dropped from coach Tim Sheens' line-up at the back-end of last season and intends taking retribution when he returns to Leichhardt Oval on March 4.
"Yeah (I have a point to prove)," Fifita said on Thursday.
"They chose better players towards the end of last year for their semi-finals teams and I guess I wasn't one of them."
"I'm going to show them how good I can possibly be and what they missed out (on) and what I could've done in the finals for them."
"It made me strive even harder through pre-season, just thinking about Round 1."
"Through the All Stars game, I was just praying I didn't get injured. I'm ready to rock and roll for the Cronulla Sharks."
Fifita's debut for Cronulla pits him against Blair, but the Sharks recruit insists he won't be targeting the Tigers back-rower despite gunning for him during a match last season.
Fifita claimed he kept inviting Blair to run at him in the Round 15 encounter only for the Kiwi international to continually offload.
"Everyone's (talking) about this blow up with Adam Blair," he said.
"I don't mind the bloke - he's a really good bloke - but football is football. It happens."
"Whoever gets in your way is going to come (up against it). My job is (defending) the middle, whoever comes through the middle that's what is going to happen."
Fifita is one of a host of new players to arrive at Cronulla over the summer.
Todd Carney, Gibbs, Mark Taufua, Jeff Robson, Jon Green and Ben Ross complete the major signings, giving hope the Sharks can reach the finals for the first time since 2008.