THE Wests Tigers have kept their faint finals hopes alive with a thrilling 22-20 win over Manly on Thursday night.

The victory moves Ivan Cleary’s men to within two points of the Warriors and Brisbane, still needing to beat South Sydney next week and hope one of those teams lose both their remaining games — and likely by some margins, due to an inferior for-and-against.

Out of the Warriors and Broncos, the former will be first to play when they face Penrith at Mt Smart Stadium on Friday, and Cleary had a cheeky message for his son Nathan who will be lining up for the Panthers.

When asked whether he’d ride the roller coaster and watch the games, Cleary replied: “Well, there’s a certain No. 7 who’s over in Auckland who knows what he’s got to do.

“Hopefully, they can do their job over there.

“I’ll sit there and watch … what can you do? You’ve just got to cross your fingers.”

The Tigers will go into their final regular season game against the Rabbitohs with some confidence knowing they upset the title heavyweight when they played them back in Round 19.

“It definitely helps when you’ve beaten sides before and we’ve shown we can beat the best teams,” Cleary said.

“We’re going to have to play a fair bit better, though.

“For now, we just have to sit back and see what happens and then we’ll know what’s in front of us.

“It’s great that we’re still alive at this point.”