They squeaked past the Wellington Orcas with a 38-32 win in the capital last weekend.
That has set up a virtual playoff match against the old enemy, the Canterbury Bulls, in Christchurch today.
The New Zealand Premiership has been tweaked this season.
The Whalers are in the southern conference.
They share the top spot with Canterbury, and the winner will likely secure a berth in the grand final against the northern conference winner.
There is a lot at stake and the Whalers will be missing two heavy hitters.
Prop Israel Otunuku has been ruled out due to concussion symptoms, and key forward Daniel Muasika has fractured a bone in his arm and dislocated his wrist. He is out for the season.
The pair will leave a big hole in the pack.
The other major concern for Otago is that their defensive effort fell away in the second half last weekend.
Coach Dallas Wade felt he needed to manage his resources more carefully and would approach the game against the Bulls differently.
"We kept some of our engine room on longer than they needed to be," he said, adding they got gassed and struggled to contain the Orcas, who ran in a series of late tries.
But, just when it looked like the game was slipping away, the Whalers got the ball back and scored twice to seal a tense win.
"We were lacking a little bit because we got too complacent. But, yeah, our resilience showed that we could actually do things when we did the one percenters that we needed to do."
The Whalers will have to reshuffle their pack, and Wade was still deciding how that would look when the Otago Daily Times interviewed him earlier in the week.
But they will need a big shift from their captain, Benjamin Latu, and hooker Jak Morton will play a key role in helping get the ball wide quickly to where the Whalers have a lot of firepower.
Centre Ngatokotoru Mateariki has scored six tries in two games.
Fullback Kobe Tuhakaraina has safe hands and Mason Lome-Hindle is elusive and has good pace.
Wade said he had very little information on the Bulls, but they do have one opponent in common this season. They both posted big wins over the Aoraki Eels from Timaru.
"We haven’t got too much insight on what Canterbury brings this year. We had a few video clips, but it doesn’t really show what shape, what sort of game plan they have."
