Souths won four of the five competitions in the period spanned, and mutter still about the one that got away, the Saturday on which the Balmain Tigers bravely tackled and slow-motioned their way to the grand final heist of 1969. But by the close of play in 1971, all was as it should be in the story of the team that ranked as the mightiest in the league.

Remarkably, at that final hooter late on a September afternoon, Souths had won 20 premierships in 64seasons, and been runners-up 13times. Esteemed league journalist Claude Corbett had nailed it for sure   in 1925 when he declared them  "the pride of the league". In '71, fans danced in the SCG stands, and the sausages at countless celebratory barbecues were, in the culinary fashion of the day, cardinal and myrtle in hue.

No one could have guessed  the depth and darkness of the clouds that lay over the horizon. Ahead for the Rabbitohs after this time of plenty lay a great drought and, later, seasons of pestilence and plague ... and no more premierships in 42 years.

All of it explains why Sunday is one of the special days of rugby league's 107 years in Australia.

This is a dream of a match – Souths, bearing the scars and bruises of seasons past, but on the very cusp of full restoration, confronting one final hurdle against a team of a traditionally tough calibre: the knock-'em-down, drag-'em-out scrappers from Canterbury. Nothing is guaranteed.

Yet to a veteran journo who has been somewhere around rugby league ever since a rain-soaked Test day at the SCG in 1950 when Australia won the Ashes, season 2014 has the distinctive tang of a Rabbitohs year about it, especially so after the power-packed demolition of the premiers, Easts.

Following the slow climb that came after the seasons of The Long Dark, Souths have tilted boldly at the title in the past three years, edging ever closer, building the needed X factor under the firm hand and shrewdness of coach Michael Maguire. Strong across the paddock, with star quality and a particularly powerful engine, they stand ready.

It was at such times in seasons past that the old Telegraph journo George Crawford would offer glowing observations along the lines of: "When Souths are going well, rugby league is going well" and paint his word pictures of huge armies of Rabbitohs fans streaming across Moore Park to the big games.

The story of Souths' years in the wilderness has been well and thoroughly told, of how the club progressively lost its way in the years after 1971, chronically short on funds  – and struggling desperately to keep pace in a sport that was changing fast to game/business and beyond to business/game.

The good Souths seasons dried up to a trickle – a fourth in '72, fifth in 1980, fourth Egyptian sunset under the coaching hand of George "Never Say Die" Piggins, fourth before those four years and in advance of his heroic leadership of the club through the draining Super League era.

George was a club legend already, remembered for his courage as a player  – especially for his match-winning role in the '71 grand final.

Only once in earlier years had Souths taken the wooden spoon in the premiership – in the war- affected season of 1945. But they ran last in 1975 and four more times in the plunging years heading towards and into the new century.

As rugby league became a victim of its own success into the '90s and big business turned a hungry gaze on to the game, a handful of clubs, Souths among them, became prey, especially so when News Ltd entered the picture in 1995.

The furies were unleashed on the game, and a vicious war for its future began in earnest.

Souths – pride of the league – became, in rumour then in fact, a rabbit in the headlights.

On October 15, 1999, they were booted out of the competition. I was attending a Special Olympics luncheon that day and can still recall the emotional gasp of  "No"  that ricocheted around the room when the news was announced.

As a journalist then in the fourth decade of recording the passing parade of rugby league's seasons, I found myself caught up briefly in the afterburn of the bitter Super League v ARL war.

A weekly contributor then to The Sunday Telegraph, I lodged a story for the October 9 edition, previewing in a story of modest length a Rabbitohs protest march planned for the Sunday and to be led by the grand old man of Souths, nonagenarian Albert Clift.

A knowledge of history suggested this was shaping as the biggest protest in all the years of Australian sport, and therefore newsworthy. But the story did not run, and the march itself went without mention in the paper.

The subsequent Sunday gathering in mid-town Sydney was remarkable, attracting a crowd estimated at  20,000 to 50,000, an occasion big enough to become the lead story on TV that evening – albeit given only cursory coverage the following day by News Ltd.

I felt at the time that the decision was both a considerable misjudgment in an editorial sense and also disrespectful to a great (if struggling) sporting club which had provided such rich fare for the media over the years but was now on its knees.

With other commitments to turn to, I resigned on the Monday.

In rugby league's tumultuous, fast-moving world, all of it seems long ago and far away now – as with many of the splits, skirmishes and busted friendships that were the products of the Super League period. Time heals – evidenced by the positive news that George and Nolene Piggins will be at the grand final, and by George's reflective and generous words in the Thursday press.

His presence at the grand final should add an extra component to the Souths armoury. If the Rabbitohs can muster George's "spirit of '71", they will win.

It will be a good thing too, just to see Souths' "first couple" back at the football. There's no doubt the club's backer and powerful driving force, Russell Crowe, patient and passionate in equal measures these recent years as he dreams of the day, will be pleased about that.

You can back it in though that it will be no easy task for the Rabbitohs. Rugby league's grand final will surely be no mirror image of the AFL cakewalk of last weekend. Souths' hunger after the long wait and the Bulldogs DNA will guarantee that.

To these eyes it always seems that within the team (Canterbury) that once sported the worst nickname in the game's history, "The Hyphenates", there is a deep well of toughness and will to win.

Those qualities seems to have taken root very early, probably around 1938 when Canterbury won the premiership just three years after they had joined the competition – with their playing strength constructed around the famous "Three Musketeers" – the front-row tough guys Eddie Burns, Roy Kirkaldy and Henry Porter, who among them played 551 matches for the club.  Layers of toughness were added over the years under such coaches as the two Ryans – Kevin and Warren – and today's hard man with the wry touch, DesHasler.

I retain a vision from years back which shines a brief shaft of light on the stoic qualities of Hasler, then a star player with Manly.

Chancing to be at the Narrabeen Fitness Centre on a hot day on which the Sea Eagles were training on an adjoining field, I kept an eye on their tough routine of repeat 400-metre runs.

Des won every one of them, never flagging. Count on this: his team won't be pretty on Sunday, but they'll make it hard, backed by the club's big fan base.

Reflecting on Canterbury's quality, Tim Pickup, a gritty and skilful five-eighth for NSW, Australia, Norths and the Berries, says succinctly of the inbuilt hardness: "That's why I went to the club – I got sick of playing against them!"

Sunday's game is enriched by the presence of the English champions, Sam Burgess and James Graham, two of the finest to have played the game here — with the Burgess twins Tom and George fast climbing their own ladders of achievement, too.

The forecast is for a hot day, but neither side should count on any wilting of the English flowers in the opposition.

These are tough men, as was Castleford's Kevin Ward, who climbed off a plane from Britain  in 1987 and a day or two later turned in a whale of a game for Manly in the grand final against Canberra in a temperature of 35degrees-plus.

Souths, at around $1.42, are warm favourites – as they generally have been in grand finals they have reached over the years. With a full house and these ancient Sydney clubs doing battle, it shapes as one of the really special grand final occasions, notwithstanding a deep nod of regret from both camps in the direction of the two missing men who contributed so much along the road to their respective club's 2014 premiership dreams — Issac Luke and Michael Ennis.

On the eve of such a day, a final Churchillian observation seems appropriate.

Joyce Churchill, widow of the game's "Little Master", Clive, will be on hand at ANZ Stadium to present the 29th medal to the man chosen as player of the grand final.

"I'm so proud to think it was Clive who coached the last four Souths teams to win the premiership [1967, '68, '70, '71]  and I know how much he would have admired the qualities that are in this team," she said onFriday.

"After 43 years ... I'm hoping and thinking that this is the one!"