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In a game that had it all, a gutsy comeback in the pouring rain has seen the Warriors finally break their Shark Park hoodoo, recording their first win at PointsBet Stadium since 2015 with a 32-30 victory over Cronulla on Sunday.
The Warriors hadn’t beaten Cronulla away since 2015, and after trailing 20-0 after 19 minutes it didn’t look like the record was being broken any time soon. But in a huge second-half turnaround, the Warriors once again showed their newfound resilience to see them earn their fourth win of the season.
“I’m super proud,” said Warriors coach Andrew Webster. “The boys’ attitude of never giving up is just something different. It’s crazy how good it is. It’s one of the best wins I’ve been a part of … they just never gave up.”
Marata Niukore and Shaun Johnson celebrate. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Former Sharks star Shaun Johnson was the hero, with the Warriors halfback involved in everything including kicking the winning penalty goal in the final minute of the match.
“To get one over in the dying minutes… what a feeling,” Johnson told Fox League after the game. “We spoke about it at halftime, do we actually believe we can come out and do it?
“We said some funny s**t at halftime bro, we were like ‘what a story it would be, we will tell out grandkids about this one day lads, just go out and have a crack’.
“And I thought we just, f**k man, we are just so resilient, I love being a part of it and it is just such a good feeling.”
The Sharks opened the scoring early after a Warriors mistake close to their own try line, with Teig Wilton crossing for the home side in his 50th NRL match. It looked like it was going to be a whitewash on old-boys day when the Sharks ran out to a 20-0 lead after just 19 minutes.
But something the Warriors have grown accustomed to this season, they began their fightback and managed to trail 26-12 by the halftime break.
Despite losing Marata Niukore in the 39th minute for a contentious hip-drop tackle on Sharks centre Siosifa Talakai, the Warriors scored the opening two tries of the second half to narrow the gap. Ronaldo Mulitalo extended the lead for the home side, but as the heavens opened a bulldozing Josh Curran hit back for the Warriors with ten minutes left on the clock to see the scoreboard level at 30-all.
When Cronulla were reduced to 12 men after enforcer Dale Finucane was sin-binned with five minutes to go for an alleged hip drop similar to Niukore’s, it looked like an upset was on the cards. A penalty to the visitors gave Johnson the chance to be the hero kicking his side to a two-point lead.
But just before the siren sounded Johnson was himself penalised for being in an offside position, Nicho Hynes was given the opportunity to send the game into golden point. A kick from the sideline in the heavy rain proved too difficult, with his kick being waved away and the Warriors getting an extraordinary win.
While the dreaded hip-drop tackle is a manoeuvre that needs to be removed from the game immediately, the officials must also be careful to not tar similar tackles with the same brush.
Niukore was sin-binned late in the first half for an alleged hip-drop tackle on Talakai, a call that former premiership-winning coach Shane Flanagan thought was completely wrong.
“I don’t even think it was a penalty,” said Flanagan on Fox League at halftime. “It was just a power run, he gets the defender off to the side….. strange call.”
Fellow commentator Corey Parker agreed. “It was absolutely a tough call. Trying to stop Sifa, he is such a powerhouse runner,” said Parker.
“He made contact, he was pushed to the side, and it was deemed to be a hip-drop. I don’t see where he was supposed to go in that instance, he was just doing his best to hang on.”
Braden Hamlin-Uele. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
After Finucane suffered the same fate late in the second half after a tackle went wrong on Warriors fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon was quick to defend his skipper.
“Most of those are accidents, where you get swung around the back of someone and accidentally get it wrong,” said Fitzgibbon.
“No one wants them in the game, but they are hard to get right sometimes.”
After such a strong 2022 season, the Sharks now find themselves 11th with just two wins from five games. Defending their lead instead of striving for more points, allowing silly errors to slip into their game and continuing to invite their opponents back into the game has their coach frustrated.
“We’ve had three games exactly the same …. we are getting ourselves into a good contest and then just haven’t managed it well enough,” said Fitzgibbon.
“Just disappointed in our fundamentals. We invited them back in, simple play the ball errors gave them time on our try line, simple dropped catches gave them points.
“Fundamental errors in the simple stuff, it’s really frustrating We played some really strong footy again, but we want to do it for 80 minutes, not just periods.”
Warriors fans had their fingers crossed that when the prodigal son returned it would be the start of a resurgence, and Johnson has not disappointed.
He was instrumental again on Sunday during his side’s win, scoring a try, having a hand in two others, and producing a kicking game that put opposing halfback Hynes on show.
Sharks wingers and close friends Ronaldo Mulitalo and Sione Katoa both played in the 64th NRL game on Sunday and have also created a friendly try-scoring competition to see who could reach 50 first.
Both players started the games with 48 tries each, and within the first five minutes had each edged closer to 49. But when Mulitalo crossed for his second try of the day in the 55th minute, he also claimed the bragging rights reaching his 50th.
While the Warriors finally seem like a complete and competitive side under new Webster, there is a worrying pattern that is fast becoming a problem – in every one of their five games so far they have allowed the opposition to score first.
“We keep making it hard, we must love it for some reason,” joked Webster. “I’m looking forward to an 80-minute performance.”