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Cronulla have taken a huge step towards Finals football with a 32-12 win over North Queensland in Townsville, putting a huge dent in the Cowboys’ chances in the process.
The Sharks are now all but secured in the eight with 13 wins and a huge advantage in differential between them and their rivals.
The Cowboys, conversely, need to find two wins from their final two games, which includes Penrith in the final round, while also improving their differential. It seems unlikely from here, especially if they play like this.
For a side that needed the win more, they showed a remarkable lack of endeavour with the ball, proving unable to trouble a Sharks side that has been there for the taking, especially on their own goalline in 2023.
In their own end, North Queensland gave up two uncharacteristically simple tries late in the first half which game them a mountain to climb, before letting more slip in the second.
Scott Drinkwater had opened the scoring, but was otherwise unable to influence the game and, without him, the Cowboys’ attack looked toothless.
Todd Payten’s side had plenty enough ball to make an impact, with 41 sets to the Sharks’ 34, but didn’t ask anywhere near enough questions of their opponents.
“They made some last gasp tackles,” he said. “Their wingers made some smart decisions and got in the passing lane a couple of times.
“Conversely, we didn’t defend our tryline well enough, we let two soft tries in around the posts just before half time. They moved faster defensively than us.
“Our mindset has to be to play through teams. We were a bit sideways in that second half. A little bit more unstructured football can help us, with an offload or two. We still need to play quick. We’re a really good team when we do that.”
Craig Fitzgibbon, sick of hearing that his side are flat track bullies, now has wins over Souths and North Queensland to point to.
Many had expected their form to fall away following Will Kennedy’s injury, but his replacement, Connor Tracey, took home the Paul Green Medal for man of the match and has been close to their best in every game he has played in the number one jumper.
“We got nothing given to us, we had to earn it,” said Fitzgibbon. “It was pleasing.
“We’re working hard, we feel like we’re improving parts of our game, sticking at our plan and having the discipline to execute it over and over again instead of letting the situation get to us.
“We’ve still got more and we’ll need more.”
There’s no doubt that the Sharks are brilliant with ball in hand. There is a lot of doubt about whether they are any good without it.
When the Cowboys are good, they tackle their way to victory, and when they lose, it’s generally because they can’t post enough points. The conventional wisdom would hold that the better defence would win the day, but for 40 minutes, it really wasn’t the case.
The Cowboys got two tries, both through shocking Sharks tackling. The second, in which Chad Townsend crabbed 40m across the field without anyone engaging him, was as soft as they come, compounded by the one tackler who decided to get involved being Ronaldo Mulitalo, which allowed Valemei in to score where he should have been.
But the Sharks went to the break ahead, thanks in no small part to the Cowboys’ usually decent defence falling apart.
The first try, for Mulitalo, was an excellent example of why the Sharks’ attack is feared: they ran a short side play with limited room, but still had a decoy, a support runner and a free man to pick from. North Queensland could be forgiven for succumbing to excellent offensive play.
The second and third, however, were much more preventable as twice they allowed big men to go straight down main street and score close to the posts.
Payten’s half time chat – according to Fox League at least – focussed on their goalline D. Whatever he said didn’t work too well, as Nicho Hynes was able to prize them apart for a fourth, kicking for Wade Graham.
When you have to chase, invariably chances will come at the other end – and the Cowboys never looked like coming back.
While Cronulla would have been seen as the worse defensive side ahead of kick off, they came up huge when it matters.
As mentioned, it didn’t start superbly, but they bucked up big time to keep the Cows out from the 23rd minute until the end.
The scramble was excellent at times, and most of all, they’d done their homework: Cronulla knew that Drinkwater would come into the line on the left and look to hit the winger with the long pass, his favourite pet play, and they shut it down completely.
As good as the Sharks were, the Cowboys’ lack of imagination was exposed again.
Townsend and Tom Dearden offered very little and the other two potential sparks, Reece Robson and Jason Taumalolo, are always much better at the bash-and-barge than they are at creativity.
It’s dogged North Queensland all year and did so again: the power is there, the back three start sets well and the forwards do a sterling job to get the ball into the right end…but the finesse and polish is often missing.
They had a great completion rate, though, so there’s that. 85% wins nothing if you don’t score any points, or look like scoring. Tonight was a great example of that.