Fast-forward two weeks and it's impossible to deny it's done exactly that.

Barbarians dropped to third after being stripped of 10 points but have produced stunning performances in the last two weeks' sudden-death finals, now they're preparing for the club's maiden grand final appearance as a result.

First they hammered Lithgow 60-nil in the minor semi-final and backed that up in Saturday's preliminary final, thumping Portland 44-8 to set up a mouth-watering decider showdown with CSU Bathurst, at Diggings Oval.

"We're over the moon," Britt, who scored a double in Saturday's win, enthused.

"Even though losing those points was an outcome we didn't want, I said at the time we could take a positive out of in that we'd be playing week-to-week rather than potentially having weeks off and I think that has made a big difference.

"Our win over Lithgow was probably our best performance of the year and even we started a bit slow on Saturday we kicked into gear reasonably early and played some really good footy against Portland too, we were even able to give some guys that had niggly injuries a bit of a break as well."

Barbarians' consecutive backs-to-the-wall efforts do beg an obvious question - with all things considered is it possible the Orange side has played their grand final a week early?

"I don't think so. Actually, definitely not," Britt said, certain his side will get up for the big dance.

"I actually think we had quite a bit left in the tank on the weekend, I think we had more to give but obviously we didn't really have to.

"There hadn't been any talk of the grand final leading into that game, or the Lithgow game, we just focused on the task at hand, now we can focus on the grand final."

Britt did confirm his side has a couple of injury concerns though, a slightly worrying factor considering injuries crushed the Orange outfit's premiership dream in 2018.

"Ed Morrish left the field pretty early on with an issue and I think Jordan Clark's got a niggle in his hamstring, but hopefully they're not too serious and they'll be fit for the grand final," Britt said.

"We've got the benefit of having a lot of players this year. In the past we've run squads of 18 but this year we've got 25, 26 guys to choose from and that depth is a big factor.

"Obviously it's tough to leave guys out each week because we can only name 21 players, but the culture around the club is great and the guys that have missed out are always really keen to get in and run the tee, run the water, help run the bench.

"It's something we've made really clear, everyone has a role because it's the whole group that's got us this far and it'll be the whole group that gets us over the line in the grand final, if we are to win."

With the decider looming Britt also sent a call to arms to the Orange rugby league community, calling for them to jump on the Barbarians' bandwagon and make trip to Bathurst to support.

"It's been really great this year we've had a lot more support from the community," he said.

"At times people have looked down on Barbarians as a club a little bit but we've made an effort to expose ourselves a bit more and people are seeing that and appreciating it, we get a lot of comments wishing us luck and we appreciate that massively.

"Hopefully we can get a lot of supporters down there next weekend and get the job done."

Along with Britt, Morrish also scored before leaving the field while Luke Coleman, Brent Kuczinski, Michael Newman, Jake Allen and Jake Wood crossed the line too, with Grant Cock nailing six of eight shots at goal.

In Saturday's league tag preliminary final CSU Bathurst Blue took down Portland 10-nil, to set up an all-Bathurst grand final against their Yellow clubmates.