FINALLY, a coach is not afraid to mention those often banned words - "grand final" - in the regular season. Gordon's Lachlan Fear is bucking coaching trends in more ways than one, and as his team hurtles towards the play-offs, it's difficult to argue they won't be in the decider.

There's enthusiasm in Fear's voice when he talks about Gordon's finals aspirations. And there's every reason for it; he predicted a top-three finish in his annual report to the club board at the start of the year after Gordon finished seventh last season.

The surprise performers of the season continued their impressive run with a 38-26 win over Manly on Saturday, although Fear was far from impressed with the team's final 20 minutes. Gordon had led 26-0 at half-time.

The Highlanders remain second on the Shute Shield ladder, eight points behind Sydney University but seven points ahead of Randwick, who lost their second successive match on the weekend.

"There is no point being in the competition, in the position we're in, and not looking at the grand final," Fear said yesterday.

"Otherwise, we might as well not turn up for the next couple of games, and get blown away in the finals.

"We're guaranteed a finals spot and pretty much guaranteed a top-three finish.

"If you set goals and you don't talk about what you want to do, it won't work. This team has one common goal, and that is to win the grand final. We have to reach certain outlined objectives to make sure we achieve that one common goal."

But Fear is far from projecting a walk through to the decider. "We are not there yet. Sydney Uni absolutely put it through us [42-5 last month] so there is a long way to go to achieve that victory in the grand final."

Winger Sisa Waqa continued his impressive season return with a hat-trick against Manly while centre Matt MacDougall, second-rower Kingsley Seale and breakaway Craig Thomas also crossed.