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Towards the end of the 2014 NRL season, I wrote about the Cronulla Sharks’ chances this year, and said they would indeed make the top eight.
Fast forward to Round 23, 2015, and the Sharks sit in fifth place, having won eight of their last nine games.
They have been playing a very solid yet scrappy brand of football, based on a strong forward pack doing their job, and look primed for finals football.
During their run of wins the Sharks have twice knocked off both competition heavyweights the Sydney Roosters and the North Queensland Cowboys.
At the start of the season the Sharks were almost comical as they went from loss to loss and low to low, however since a 42-6 drubbing at the hands of the St George Illawarra Dragons in Round 13, they have undergone an on-field change. They look like they want to be there, their defence has toughened up, and their attack is firing.
At fifth on the table, the Sharks need only one more win to guarantee their spot in the finals, but they are also equal on competition points with the fourth-placed South Sydney Rabbitohs. Can the Sharks push for a top-four spot? The Rabbitohs haven’t looked like the team they were last season.
In their run home Cronulla face the Melbourne Storm (home), Wests Tigers (home), Parramatta Eels (away) and the high-flying Manly Sea Eagles (home). The middle two games look very winnable, while the games against the Storm and the Sea Eagles promise to be absolute crackers.
If the Sharks are to go deep into the finals it will be down to their defence, as they get down and get dirty in ‘D’, particularly on their goal-line – they only conceded 4 and 16 points against the Roosters, and 18 on both occasions against the Cowboys.
While Jack Bird’s inexperience looms as a potential problem in the halves, I contribute a lot of the Sharks’ improvement this season to him. He looks ready to take on the finals, along with Cronulla’s other exciting youngster, Valentine Holmes. If these two combine as they have done throughout the season and the Sharks’ defence holds, they are a true premiership threat.
I see the Sharks finally breaking their premiership duck. It won’t be easy, and the Cowboys are far and away the favourites, but the Sharks have beaten them twice already this season and seem to be building something special.
Like many, I had written Cronulla off just two or three months ago, but how quickly it has changed.