Dolphins foundation coach Wayne Bennett meets his apprentice Kristian Woolf for the first time on Friday night, the same day a category-two storm is expected to make landfall in South East Queensland.
Some 20,000 properties in the Brisbane area face flooding, while evacuation centres have been established in northern NSW as the state faces its first cyclone warning since 1990.
Three Dolphins players stayed behind with their families when the club flew from Brisbane to Sydney on Wednesday night for the fixture moved from Suncorp to CommBank Stadium.
Mark Nicholls, Kodi Nikorima and replacement player Kenny Bromwich had the Dolphins' support when they approached the club about staying behind to be with their young families.
"All the guys have got different circumstances and different things going on there that affect those decisions," Woolf said.
"They've certainly got my support, the club's full support."
The AFL on Thursday rescheduled one of two fixtures originally slated to be played in southeast Queensland this weekend after ruling out relocating the matches.
Brisbane's match against Geelong has been moved to round three, when the two clubs were meant to have a bye, on March 29 at the Gabba, starting at 6.35pm local time.
Gold Coast and Essendon will have to play two games just days apart after their opening round clash was shifted to round 24, though the AFL has yet to lock in dates and times for any games past round 15.
Woolf, literally making a whirlwind start to life as an NRL coach, said rescheduling wasn't so simple for the NRL.
"Our byes don't match up with Souths'," said the Dolphins boss.
"The AFL were lucky, I suppose in that they had two teams that had a bye a couple of weeks later.
"They were able to make that work. It just didn't match up that way (for us). I just don't see what other decision could have been made."
Nicholls, who has a young family, was seen sandbagging his home in Redcliffe on Wednesday.
Bree Nikorima, the partner of Dolphins playmaker Kodi, is six months pregnant and has two young children.
She labelled the NRL's move to leave families behind during a cyclone for a game of football "disgusting" in a now-deleted story on Instagram.
Former Dolphins coach Bennett refused to comment on the decisions of his ex-players, but remained bullish about the NRL's relocation choice.
"That's a Dolphin issue. It's not one that we have," Bennett said on Thursday.
"They've (the NRL) done the right thing.
"It's important to everyone involved in the game - the fans, the TV stations, all the people that support the game."
The round-17 clash between the clubs will now be a Dolphins home game following the move.
Meanwhile, the Brisbane Broncos are scheduled to return on Friday after Thursday night's NRL clash with the Sydney Roosters at Allianz Stadium.
Arriving in Sydney on Tuesday with the team, Broncos chief executive Dave Donaghy has already flown back to oversee support for loved ones.
22°C