Sharks heading for finals exit after dreadful Nicho Hynes call

Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon had the chance to make a gutsy call on their battling star, now the Sharks are headed for more finals misery.

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It would’ve been squeamish, but Craig Fitzgibbon had a chance to plunge his arm into the toilet bowl and pluck Cronulla out of another backdoor finals flush.

But by keeping faith with Nico Hynes, he’s virtually pulled the chain himself and reaffirmed the club’s reputation for being more comfortable in the S-bend than the business end.

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Whether blind faith, delusion or simply justifying the halfback’s enormous pay packet, Fitzgibbon has retained his battling playmaker for this weekend’s crunch final against the Cowboys.

It’s a gutsy call for the club’s biggest game in three years, especially considering the ghoulish scenes of last Saturday when Hynes’ latest big stage horror show saw him marshaled by the Melbourne Storm with the ease of a shopping trolley.

Not only was the playmaker helplessly scratching at sandstone all afternoon in attack, his kicking game abandoned him to the point he would’ve struggled to hit a block of flats with a beach ball.

Cameron McInnes and Nicho Hynes of the Sharks walk off the field after losing the NRL Qualifying Final match against the Melbourne Storm. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Further deepening the crisis has been the inferno of criticism in the aftermath, with everyone from Greg Alexander to James Graham calling on Fitzgibbon to make a difficult change or risk pushing his side closer to the trapdoor than the trophy.

“He’s their marquee man and their $1 million player,” Alexander said on SEN radio on Monday. “He must be under pressure to keep his spot in the side.

“The performance against the Storm over the weekend (was poor).

In fact, the only support for Hynes has come from Cameron Smith - with the former Storm skipper urging him to “bring his strengths” and “help the players around him” - but that’s easy to say when you refereed all your own games.

It’s rough as guts, but Hynes’ confidence is so frazzled right now that no amount of encouragement can save him, not even if it’s blind support from a duty-bound former teammate.

And with the Sharks facing three-straight years without a finals win, Fitzgibbon had to swallow his loyalty and make selection fodder of his million dollar man.

Craig Fitzgibbon has opted to stick with Nicho Hynes. Picture: NRL Photos

Whether this was by benching him, shifting him to fullback or just handing control to Brayden Trindall, Hynes needed a spell from the No. 7 jersey - not just for the team’s wellbeing, but his too.

With Cronulla yet to win a finals game with their Dally M talisman at halfback, this was no time for sentiment- especially with a cadre of uncorrupted options waiting in the wings.

Daniel Atkinson has looked more than comfortable in the halves this year, while Trindall offers a superior kicking game to Hynes and greater agility due to carrying less mental luggage.

And considering the Trindall/Atkinson combination has returned a handy 66% win record this season - plus the team’s terrific record in 2024 in Hynes’ absence of seven wins from nine - it was a lay-up decision for the coach, albeit a gut-wrencher.

Daniel Atkinson is waiting in the wings and has formed a good combination with Brayden Trindall. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

But sadly for Sharks fans, the coach has allowed trust to get in the way of a decent fifth tackle option.

Put simply, the narrative around Hynes and his poise under pressure was one that began as a small polyp and has now festered in to a weeping boil.

Every move he makes is scrutinised through a warped public lens of backyard psychoanalysis and dank memes, and until he wins a cutthroat match in a style that meets our ever-lengthening standards, that’s not going to change.

To be fair, the best thing Hynes could do - other than throw his SIM card in the Georges River - is return his Dally M.

After romping to a record number of votes in his winning season, this achievement has become nothing but a 22-carat millstone dogging his footballing existence.

It earned him the gushing plaudits of a fickle public and the stifling trust of a seven-year deal, and now he finds himself failing to live up to both.

Nicho Hynes hit out at the criticism after the Sharks’ loss to the Storm. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Yes, everyone wants Hynes to succeed and rightly so - he’s a top shelf guy the kids love who plays the game in a wonderful spirit, plus he looks resplendent on marketing material.

But free boots don’t keep the lights on, especially at finals time when you’re steering around a side that exits with more urgency than Bernard Tomic.

Fitzgibbon could end up ruing his loyalty, because after all, has any fanbase ever looked back at a premiership and complained about the coach doggin’ one of the boys?

- Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Originally published as Sharks heading for finals exit after dreadful Nicho Hynes call