St George Illawarra will go from trying to handle the wet conditions at Kogarah to trying to tame the humidity in Townsville on Saturday.
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The forecast is for 30 degrees at Queensland Country Bank Stadium - a far cry from the wet and windy conditions on Sunday night which they failed to handle in the first half.
Dragons fans will be buoyed by an improved second half in the opening round local derby against the Sharks which gave them a chance to win inside the final 20-minutes.
But possession is king in the early rounds of the competition and the Dragons made too many errors in their own half to challenge for the two-points.
"Before we did anything, we handed them 14 points that was always going to be hard to run down. I think we had to make 120 more tackles and we did that to ourselves," coach Anthony Griffin lamented after the game.
"I thought we'd broken them down in that second half and were a good chance of finishing them off, but we just found a way to keep feeding them the ball at our own end of the field."
The good news it is only round one. No need to panic.
Matt Dufty's blazing solo try, Ben Hunt's ability to straightened up the attack and Paul Vaughan's aggression in the middle were all good signs in the second half.
Jack Bird getting through the game unscathed is another tick on what is set to be a season of ups and downs for the Dragons.
Their opponents this week were underwhelming at the foot of the mountains and Jason Taumalolo perhaps played his worst game in his NRL career.
The Panthers showed the blueprint to limit the damage of the Cowboys' stars: control the ball. But can the Dragons follow suit?
- Dragons v Cowboys, Saturday, Queensland Country Bank Stadium. 7.35pm.
