- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Conventional wisdom says you need to be a top four team to win a premiership, but there’s one team out there no one wants to be playing come finals time.
With all the focus on Souths’ resurgence, Penrith’s early promise and the big signings at the Roosters, the Sharks have settled themselves almost unnoticed on the fringes of the double chance.
Since the ‘NRL era’ commenced in 1998, most finals series have been played under the random number generator that was the McIntyre finals system. This didn’t give the top four the double chance but introduced us to highest ranking losers, lowest ranking winners, a mess of scheduling, and random eliminations based on other teams’ results.
Under that system we saw freak runs like Parramatta (eighth) in 2009 and the Warriors (sixth) in 2011, both ending at the grand final.
That finals system isn’t lamented and it still amazes me the NRL kept it for so long, but that’s another story.
The system we have now has worked since 2012 and in that time, two teams have made the grand final from outside the top four: North Queensland (eighth) last year and Canterbury (seventh) in 2014. It’s a cleaner, easier series designed to give the top four every chance at success.
Cronulla are on 30 points with two games left, equal with Penrith and St George and one game behind the Rabbitohs, Storm and the Roosters.
It’s fair enough to say that with two games left, the top three positions will be taken by Souths, Melbourne and the Roosters. These three have at least one winnable game in the next fortnight which will see them right.
Even as Penrith self-destructed, I thought the Panthers would lock away fourth spot but their loss to the Knights makes it tough with the Warriors and the Storm to finish.
Which leaves St George Illawarra, on a familiar slide until handling Wests Tigers last week to cling to fourth by their fingernails.
A quirk of the draw sees Cronulla and St George playing the same teams to finish the year – Newcastle and Canterbury, no easybeats by any means.
The Dragons only lead the Sharks by 17 points on for and against. It won’t take much to catch them, but then again it doesn’t really matter.
Momentum, experience and luck are all starting to turn Cronulla’s way (and let’s not forget that positions five and six get a home final in week one).
The Sharks have proven finals experience, that grinding, low-scoring, close-finishing style. They’ve got the fourth best defence, a key feature as we approach the business end.
Their ability to slow the ruck helps them with this grind. The Sharks sometimes dodge the coverage when it comes to highlighting the wrestle, but they’re as masterful as the Storm and Roosters at what Melbourne centre Curtis Scott calls ‘tackle tech’.
Andrew Fifita of the Sharks (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)
They have the knack of dragging teams into the alleyway for a brawl, whether they want to fight or not. They revel in the scrap, with seven wins from 12 games decided by less than a converted try this year. What the Raiders would give to have that record.
Nine members of the 2016 premiership’s starting 17 took the field last week and it’s not a stretch to say this year’s squad is even stronger than the 2016 one.
Coach Shane Flanagan has been able to add quality in the halves, with Matt Moylan starting to show the class for which he was brought over from Penrith. Moylan is third in the NRL for line break assists, a stat that would surprise many after he hardly set the world on fire early on.
A lot of Moylan and halfback Chad Townsend’s work is being finished by fullback Valentine Holmes, one of the NRL’s most exciting players. The game’s top try scorer, he runs the ball back hard, can dance through any defence and his finishing speaks for itself.
A lot of players get christened ‘gamebreakers’ these days, but it’s a title Holmes has earned.
[latest_videos_strip category=”league” name=”League”]
Then there’s the always enigmatic Andrew Fifita, loathed and loved in equal measure by people in and out of the Shire (and in and out of the club’s coaches box).
Much was made of Fifita’s expletive-riddled post-try theatrics last week against North Queensland and plenty around the NRL are still trying to blow it up into something meaningful, but it wasn’t too exciting.
If anything, that reaction shows that Flanagan and his crew know exactly which buttons to push to get their main man firing.
He’s the most penalised player in the NRL this season but he’s also the most damaging if he is sent in the right direction. It might not reflect all that well on Fifita that he’s so transparently easy to rile up, but whatever works, works.
It’s also worth noting that Cronulla are fresher than they have been at this point for quite some time – Aaron Woods, Josh Dugan, Wade Graham, Moylan and Fifita didn’t play through a gruelling Origin series, although Dugan and Graham have missed long periods with injury (again).
Woods has been exactly what Flanagan wanted as a mid-year arrival. Much maligned but quietly effective, Woods has only missed four tackles since pulling on a Sharks jersey. He’s gaining big metres and is still good for the occasional offload. He’s a perfect fit in the front row.
Valentine Holmes of the Sharks. (Photo by Tony Feder/Getty Images)
Jayden Brailey continues to steadily build his career, splitting the hooker role with James Segeyaro. Brailey may not be the full 80-minute number nine yet, but he’s shown that he has no problems mixing it with the best.
Winning the premiership is all about knowing how to handle yourself at the business end of a long and arduous season and Cronulla have plenty of old heads who can keep the club on track: the likes of Paul Gallen, Matt Prior and especially second rower Luke Lewis, on his last hurrah before retiring.
Lewis is a much-loved clubman and player and there’s no doubt his teammates want to send him out on top. If that’s not motivation above and beyond the usual, then I don’t know what is.
With my beloved Raiders working on their fitness during September, I’ve got the Sharks as my favourite to win their second premiership in three years. And their ladder position in two weeks’ time won’t matter.