They have been the worst two teams this season, and this Sunday’s showdown between the Cronulla Sharks and Canberra Raiders will almost certainly decide who claims the wooden spoon this season.
Both teams have won five matches each, which means that a victory for either team will go some way towards avoiding the most unwanted prize in rugby league.
Entering Round 24, the Sharks’ worse percentage (minus 252 to the Raiders’ minus 195) sees them occupy last place on the ladder entering the battle of the cellar-dwellers.
The Sharks’ struggles on and off the field have been well-documented this year, especially with the ASADA investigation having dragged on for way too long, and the club sacking Todd Carney after that now-infamous bubbling photo scandal.
Even NRL chief operating officer Jim Doyle feels for the current plight of the club, having labelled the ongoing ASADA case as being “completely unacceptable” when the club sacked Carney at the end of June.
The Sharks have also had to contend with the departure of interim coach Peter Sharp, as well as injuries to key players throughout the season resulting in the retirements of two ex-Tigers identities in Beau Ryan and John Morris.
They have also been hammered on the field countless times this season and between May 17 and June 27 they have failed to score a point in 324 minutes footy. That’s twice the length of the 2009 hit film Avatar.
It seems like the Sharks cannot wait for Shane Flanagan to resume his post as head coach of the side, after he was suspended for at least nine months for his role in the club’s controversial supplements program.
Prior to his season-long suspension the club had reached the finals in 2012 and 2013. On the back of an impressive recruitment campaign it was suggested that the Sharks were going to be a team on the rise.
They landed them the likes of Bryce Gibbs, Chris Heighington, Beau Ryan (now retired), Michael Gordon, Jeff Robson and Andrew Fifita, among many others.
However, the club’s current woes this season, caused mainly by the psychological effect the ASADA investigation has had on the club, has them at risk of winning their first wooden spoon since 1969.
But in all the doom and gloom, there have been some highlights this year. Consecutive comebacks from the dead against the Broncos and Roosters, as well as Paul Gallen becoming the first NSW captain to raise the State of Origin shield since 2005 gave fans something to smile about.
There have also been a pair of victories over third-placed Penrith this year, as well as a 31-point win over the New Zealand Warriors, which ranks as their biggest marginal victory all season.
Additionally, they will welcome current Bulldogs captain Michael Ennis to the club next year, where he will provide some much-needed back-up to Gallen as far as leadership is concerned.
And so it seems that the Sharks cannot wait for season 2014 to end quite soon enough. But they aren’t the only ones who are suffering all year.
Despite the acquisition of experienced coach Ricky Stuart, who many believe is past his use-by date, the Raiders have also underachieved on the field. After winning three of their first seven matches, they have only won twice since Anzac Day and will miss the finals in consecutive years for the first time since 1985-86.
Stuart arrived at a club which was basically a train wreck as far as player discipline was concerned, with Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson, as well as Sandor Earl, having been shown the door in 2013.
Their most impressive victory of the season was against the South Sydney Rabbitohs in Round 4, which at the time went to suggest that Michael Maguire’s men, who have since rose to second on the ladder, were premiership pretenders.
The Raiders are currently enduring a five-match losing streak and last week they allowed the Dragons to score their first win in their own backyard since 2000. Additionally, they haven’t won at home since defeating the Cowboys on May 25.
With 579 points scored against them, the Green Machine currently has the worst defence in the competition, and are in danger of claiming their first wooden spoon since their inaugural year in 1982.
Not since Tommy Raudonikis in 1998-99 has any coach claimed consecutive wooden spoons; and never before has any coach won consecutive wooden spoons with two different clubs.
After leading Parramatta to a second consecutive last-place finish last year, family matters and the lure of trying to fix his old club led Ricky Stuart to leave the Eels to return to Canberra.
It’s hard to believe that this is the same man who took the Roosters to a premiership as a rookie coach in 2002, and until this year was the last man to lead New South Wales to Origin glory in 2005.
If the Raiders do finish last at the end of this season, it would well and truly vindicate some fans’ belief that he is past his use-by date.
With both the Sharks and Raiders desperate to avoid the wooden spoon after contrasting seasons of woe in 2014, it won’t live up to the expectations of a heavyweight clash, but there will be some heat involved.
Will the Sharks’ home ground advantage help them to avoid their first last-place finish since 1969? Or will the past experience of Ricky Stuart and the Raiders prove the telling story?
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