FRIDAY night’s showdown with St George Illawarra Dragons is the next step in Warrington’s quest to be future World Club champions, says Tony Smith.

Wolves’ head of coaching and rugby concedes his side have not yet deserved a shot at that crown.

But Smith feels winning a Grand Final is a matter of when, not if, and believes the World Club Series game can provide vital experience.

“We’d love to be World Club champions one day,” he said. “We haven’t deserved the opportunity for that yet, however this is the next closest thing we’ve come to it.

“It’s a way for us to prepare for our future when we do get to play to be World Club champions, for that day when we become Super League champions – which we hope to do in the near future.”

Smith guided Leeds Rhinos to a World Club Challenge victory over a Canterbury Bulldogs side that included Roy Asotasi in 2005, but will not be drawing on that experience.

“We’re as prepared as you can be against a team you don’t play very often,” added Smith. “There’s not a whole lot to take from that experience (2005) apart from you know you’re going to be in for a game.

“The Australian teams fight to the end, they’ll give it their best shot and try as hard as they can – we know that though.”

But Smith is confident it is Dragons boss Paul McGregor who should be worrying about the hosts, rather than Wolves fearing the visitors.

“Absolutely, there’s some improvement in us, but we’ve played pretty solid rugby league,” he explained.

“They’ll be looking at us and seeing whether they can cope with us, rather than whether we can cope with them.

“Aside from the couple of games at the back end of the year when you play for a trophy, this is the biggest.

“We’re on the world stage. This gets attention in both hemispheres.

“So it’s a great opportunity for us to say ‘hey, we’re as good as some of the NRL teams in Australia’.”

Former St George and Illawarra man Smith insists Friday’s outcome will come down to performance.

“I can’t see either team playing poorly and winning this game,” he said.

“So it’s all about performing well, each of the players putting in their best performance for this stage of the year.

“They play a bit of rugby league as well, they throw the ball around, Gareth Widdop and Benji Marshall have a big passing game.

“They do a lot of passes around there with [Josh] Dugan as well. They’ve got some rugby league in them and we’ll play some too.

“It’s a bit tight this time of year because of weather and conditions, but at the same time we don’t want to be caught up in a one-up hit-out and ‘bashathon’ – that can happen in the NRL as well.”