Cronulla have declared themselves capable of going deep into September after spoiling Robbie Farah’s fairytale with a 25-8 win over the Wests Tigers to book a NRL finals berth.
Both sides went into the Leichhardt Oval clash on the final day of the regular season with a simple equation – win and grab seventh spot while a loss would mean the end of their campaign.
Retiring dummy-half Farah caused a minor sensation when he was drafted into the side minutes before kickoff after Corey Thompson suffered an achilles injury during the warm-up.
Having been ruled out less than an hour earlier because of his fractured leg, Farah started from the bench and was injected into the game midway through the second half.
However he couldn’t inspire his side to victory and ended his illustrious career a loser as the joint venture’s finals’ drought stretched into an eighth year.
Boasting experienced campaigners Wade Graham, Shaun Johnson, Josh Dugan and Andrew Fifita, and the inspiration to send retiring skipper Paul Gallen out a winner, the Sharks believe they can come from the bottom half of the draw to shake some cages.
After losing five games this year by two points or less, the Sharks only scraped into the top eight in seventh spot.
However, had they won those five games, they would have finished third.
Asked if their position on the ladder belied their potential, coach John Morris said: “Most definitely.
“It’s been frustrating to drop those games – five times, we scored more tries and got beat. I think there’s only nine (of those) games this year and the Sharks have featured in five of them.”
The Sharks will meet Manly on Saturday night in week one of the finals.
The Sharks took a 6-4 lead into halftime after Tigers winger David Nofoaluma was contentiously penalised for a voluntary tackle just before the break to allow Johnson to kick a gift two points.
In the second half, the visitors broke the Tigers’ back, and the hearts of the 19,491-strong soldout crowd, with a six-minute three-try blitz which included a double to Sosaia Feki.
Johnson was influential, setting up Briton Nikora’s first-half try and dabbing in a kick for Josh Morris’ four-pointer five minutes after the resumption.
Feki scored two tries in two minutes to make it 24-4 and put the result beyond doubt.
While the occasion was enormous for the Tigers, who had the motivation to play for Farah as well as breaking into the finals for the first time since 2011, they failed to do it justice in the second half.
“We put ourselves into a great situation. We play the game to play in grand finals and that’s the biggest thing I’m continually trying to shift in our mentality,” coach Michael Maguire said.
“Some of those players are as good if not better than some players I’ve coached that have won grand finals.”
