Round 10
Raiders 28 l. Sharks 38

2006 NRL Telstra Premiership Index [Table] [Draw] [Player Stats] [Club Headlines]

Location: Aus_NZ > National > First Grade Competition: NRL Telstra Premiership

Sharks in form and no fanfare
Tue May 16, 2006
Cronulla have now strung together four successive victories and are slipping under the radar of their opponents and representative selectors as they sit nicely in outright 6th position and will be the only leading club unaffected by the Origin series.

The Sharks went into the match without halfbacks Brett Kimmorley and Adam Dykes, lost leading forward Lance Thompson early in match due to a knee injury and stand-in captain Nigel Vagana was forced off at halftime. Without their most experienced quartet for either the entire match or good portions of it, the Sharks continued their impressive form and with no players selected in the Origin series have a great opportunity to build momentum for the season ahead.

Cronulla sprinted out of the blocks against Canberra where they led 16-0 after 11 minutes with tries to hooker Kevin Kingston, fullback David Simmons and Vagana.

David Howell got Canberra into the match when he intercepted a poor pass from Greg Bird to score a soft try. However, the Sharks regrouped with unconverted tries to Paul Gallen and Phil Bailey put them up 24-6 at the break.

Cameron Ciraldo continued the Sharks dominance after halftime when he swooped on a kick from Brett Kearney to score his first try in the top grade. Luke Covell landed his 3rd goal from six attempts for Cronulla to lead 30-6.

Canberra stormed back into the game scoring three unanswered tries to Clinton Schifcofske, Tom Leroyd Lahrs and Jason Smith in the space of ten minutes with the scores now at 30-22 with 25 minutes still remaining.

Simmons scored his second try to give the Sharks breathing space at 36-22 and Covell landed a penalty goal to waste further time for the Raiders to comeback.

Adam Mogg scored in the final few seconds to bring the difference at fulltime to ten points and not a true reflection of Cronulla's dominance throughout the match.

Sharks coach Stuart Raper after the match said, "We ended up without the four most experienced players in our squad and to win the game after that was a tremendous effort. They came back in the second half and we had to see that off, which we did. It was a great team effort."

Cronulla had a bye in Round 1 and than had 12-0 and 10-0 leads against Brisbane and Manly in the following two games only to lose both those matches. The Sharks also lost a narrow match to the Roosters in Round 5 when they had an opportunity to win that as well. After Round 6 they lost 42-16 against Wests Tigers who were without their best player Benji Marshall and with one win, one bye and four losses their season was looking bleak. Four weeks later the Sharks now have five wins and if they converted the losses against Brisbane and Manly to victories they would be in equal top spot with the Storm.

The Sharks face Canterbury this weekend in a clash where they'll go in as very firm favourites with the Bulldogs missing four of their forwards due to State of Origin duty and halfback Brent Sherwin is still out injured. The Bulldogs rely on a power game and minus Willie Mason, Andrew Ryan, Mark O'Meley and Nate Myles they are by far the best and most certain bet of the weekend.

Backrowers Gallen and Thompson can count themselves unlucky not to be selected in the NSW side and Albert has been in good form on the right wing but the tradition is now that specialist wingers are a thing of the past in representative sides.

By the time the Origin series concludes, the Sharks would have had the opportunity to seal a Finals place.

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