As well as precious premiership points being on offer in a genuine crunch match between two fallen heavyweights, both teams will don special custom-made jumpers in a poignant tribute to motor neurone disease sufferer Jai Arrow.
Neither side has won since Arrow - who played 24 games for the Broncos and 98 for the Rabbitohs across seven seasons - publicly revealed on May 20 his devastating diagnosis.
After Thursday night's match, the jerseys will be auctioned off and the money will be provided directly to Arrow and his family to support them through the challenges ahead.
"He's handled it great, so it makes it a lot easier for the rest of us," Bennett said on Wednesday after unveiling the Rabbitohs' jumper that has all sponsors' names blacked out and only features the word "Arrow" and his number 13 on the back.
Both sides are desperate to not only honour the former Queensland State of Origin enforcer, but also win to break out of alarming slumps.
The injury-ravaged and freefalling Rabbitohs have lost three straight to tumble from comfortably inside the top four to equal eighth, while the Broncos are languishing in 12th spot after winning just five of 13 games in their title defence.
With victory at Accor Stadium, Souths can kick three wins clear of Brisbane and leave the Broncos' hopes of going back-to-back in tatters.
Bennett insists he gets no joy out of beating his old club, who he helped win six grand finals, and is focused solely on Souths' plight.
"I'm not thinking like that," the super coach said.
"No, look, they're their club.They've got to run their club. I'm with this club here and my priority is this club.
"So I'm not too worried about what they're doing. We just need to play a game of football that puts us in a position to win it and the rest will look after itself .
"You get too many theories and none of them really matter and the bottom line is just win."
While Brisbane will be without State of Origin stars Reece Walsh and Payne Haas, the Rabbitohs are missing 11 first-choice players, including co-captain and Blues forward Cam Murray.
After aggravating a calf strain last week, Campbell Graham is the latest centre to join a Souths casualty ward already featuring superstar Latrell Mitchell and his ex-NSW teammate Jack Wighton.
"We're pretty positive place here and we all try to pick each other up and make sure that we don't get into that dark place that doesn't help anybody," Bennett said.
"Yeah, morale's pretty good. There's still a lot of effort being put into the games. It's just the execution's trying to kill us the last three weeks."
15°C