Penrith prop Tim Grant shared a beer with Kade Snowden and Luke Douglas two months ago, but all that will be forgotten on Saturday night when he aims to dominate his Cronulla rivals.

The NRL trio are considered by many to be the best NSW prospects in the front row and bonded together during Ricky Stuart's `Blues in Waiting' camp in January.

Grant has lauded the Sharks' bookends as close to the best in the game, but challenged himself to step up and overpower them at Centrebet Stadium.

Come Origin time this year or in campaigns to come, the three young bulls may lead NSW into battle against Queensland, but on Saturday, they're sworn enemies.

"We all went for a beer and it was good to sit down and have a chat with the boys. When we're in that camp it's all for NSW, but when we're with our club, it's for our club so nothing changes really," Grant told AAP.

"Snowden and Douglas, I've got a lot of respect for. I've played against Kade for a long time now in the juniors ... I always look forward to playing against him because it's always a challenge and Douglas is the same - he's a bit of a warrior.

"They're definitely at the top of the tree for sure ... as a No.1 and No.2 they're as good as any other in the NRL I think."

Snowden has already made his Origin debut, while Douglas is the first NRL player to play 100 consecutive matches from debut and is thought to be close to a State call-up.

At 23, Grant is a little younger than his opposites and if he can get the points over two of his direct rivals, it can't hurt him realising his Blues dream.

"Any NRL game you've got to match their forwards and that's something we're going to look to do for sure. We're going to try and match them or go one better, that's the aim of the game," he said.

"Origin is something I definitely want to achieve in my career but I think it's selfish to be worrying about that instead of worrying about the job I need to do for Penrith.

"It was a great honour to be in the emerging squad at the start of the year with Ricky ... but as soon as we go back to training with Penrith I've just got to play footy and let my footy do the speaking."

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