Paul Gallen has questioned why Cronulla weren’t given a seven-day turnaround for the finals with the Sharks set to have the shortest lead in of all teams.
Cronulla will face Manly in Saturday night’s first elimination final, albeit with Lottoland’s hosting rights in question due to the discovery of asbestos at the ground.
Manly will have an eight-day turnaround in the match after last playing on Friday night, two days before the Sharks beat the Wests Tigers to qualify for the finals.
South Sydney, the Roosters, Melbourne, Brisbane and Parramatta will also each have eight-day turnarounds into their games, while Canberra have seven.
“I just think it’s common sense (to have a seven-day break),” Gallen said.
“It’s not me trying to get an advantage, it’s just common sense. We should have a seven-day turn around going into the semi-finals.
“The other code (AFL) have a whole week off before their semi-finals … so we should have a seven-day turnaround into our game. It should be played on Sunday.
“But if it’s not, we’ll just get to Brookvale and play when it has to be played.”
The Sharks consider Matt Moylan unlikely to recover in time for the match, after he felt further hamstring tightness on Saturday and missed Sunday’s match.
But Manly have far bigger concerns.
They have lost seven players to injuries in the past three weeks, while chief forward Martin Taupau is also set to be suspended for the match for a high tackle.
However the Sea Eagles have already beaten Cronulla while understrength this year, having toppled them at Pointsbet Stadium without Tom Trbojevic and Daly Cherry-Evans in May.
“There is no club that does it better with a backs-to-the-wall performance than a Des Hasler coached side at Manly,” coach John Morris said.
“That’s the way they love to play. Nice and physical. They have shown all year they can win with players being out.
“They came to Pointsbet Stadium this year and touched us up.
“That was a long time ago … We will go back to that but the focus for us is we’ve won five out of our last seven games and have really turned a corner.
“We’re a different team to what we were at the start of the year.”
