Pirtek Parramatta Eels club captain Tim Mannah says he's looking forward to making the trip to the Northern Territory next year, to meet the local rugby league fans.
The side will play a pre-season game in Alice Springs and a regular season game in Darwin every year for 4 years starting in 2014.
"It's really exciting, I like the aspect of the four year deal," Tim said.
"It give us the opportunity to develop relationships with people in the community and develop a strong partnership with the Northern Territory."
Tim says the people they meet and inspire is sometimes even more important than their footy.
"It's important - we've done something similar with Armidale this year when we go there for pre-season, and it's great to establish relationships with the people there, so hopefully we can do something similar here."
Speaking about tomorrow night's clash against the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium, Tim says he's looking forward to it.
"We got a taste of victory last week, which had been awhile coming, so we used that energy to fuel a great week of training, so we're going up there aiming to get a result, and hopefully we can get it," he said.
"We're not focussing on [Brisbane's finals hopes] too much, we want to make sure we go up with the right attitude about ourselves."
With the 2013 season nearing the end, questions were asked about how the team is farewelling some departing players.
"We haven't talked too much about farewelling, we've still got 4 games to go," Tim said.
"It kicked in a bit last week when Reni played his last game at Parramatta Stadium, but we'll focus on that when the time does come to wind down. It'll be a bit emotional but we'll think about it when it comes to it."
The side will play a pre-season game in Alice Springs and a regular season game in Darwin every year for 4 years starting in 2014.
"It's really exciting, I like the aspect of the four year deal," Tim said.
"It give us the opportunity to develop relationships with people in the community and develop a strong partnership with the Northern Territory."
Tim says the people they meet and inspire is sometimes even more important than their footy.
"It's important - we've done something similar with Armidale this year when we go there for pre-season, and it's great to establish relationships with the people there, so hopefully we can do something similar here."
Speaking about tomorrow night's clash against the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium, Tim says he's looking forward to it.
"We got a taste of victory last week, which had been awhile coming, so we used that energy to fuel a great week of training, so we're going up there aiming to get a result, and hopefully we can get it," he said.
"We're not focussing on [Brisbane's finals hopes] too much, we want to make sure we go up with the right attitude about ourselves."
With the 2013 season nearing the end, questions were asked about how the team is farewelling some departing players.
"We haven't talked too much about farewelling, we've still got 4 games to go," Tim said.
"It kicked in a bit last week when Reni played his last game at Parramatta Stadium, but we'll focus on that when the time does come to wind down. It'll be a bit emotional but we'll think about it when it comes to it."
