NRL 2022: Cronulla Sharks draw inspiration from Panthers’ 2021 title run after finals loss
The Panthers have given Cronulla renewed hope they can bounce back from a heartbreaking week-one finals loss and make a charge for the premiership.
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Nicho Hynes has declared the Sharks will draw inspiration from last year’s Panthers, where they came back from finals heartbreak to win the premiership.
Cronulla have been forced to recover from their shattering 93-minute epic golden-point loss to the Cowboys to prepare for a sudden-death clash with South Sydney at Allianz Stadium on Saturday night.
The Sharks players said they were ready to join Penrith by conquering rugby league’s Mt Everest.
“The Panthers did it last year,” Hynes said when asked if the Sharks could come back from their final defeat. “We’ll try and draw inspiration from that. They did it.
“So we’ve just got to keep fighting, working hard each day at training.
“There’s no secret it’s going to be extremely tough to do, Souths (on Saturday) and then Panthers (preliminary final), but it’s one week at a time.
“We’ll really focus on training this week and turning our wrongs into rights and learning our lessons.’’
The Panthers famously recovered from a 16-10 loss to South Sydney in week one of the finals last year before beating the Eels, Storm and Rabbitohs in the grand final.
Sharks hooker Blayke Brailey, who produced an incredible 68 tackles against the Cowboys, said he and his teammates spoke about their required mental and physical response moments after their heartbreaking defeat to the Cowboys.
“Obviously it was pretty tough to lose in such a tight fashion, but after the game we all spoke in the sheds about using tonight to reflect and then coming back to work because it’s not over for us,’’ Brailey said.
“We’ve got that second chance and we’ve worked hard for that.
“The best way to use that is to bounce back.
“Last year Penrith made the grand final after losing that first game, so it can be done.
“It’s not over.
“I’m sure it’s (Penrith) in the back of the boys’ heads that if we’re a good enough side, we can go all the way and we believe we’ve got a good enough side to go there.’’
Typical of the steely-eyed Cam McInnes, the Sharks forward claimed Cronulla will be stronger for their disappointment.
“It’s a semi-final, sudden death, against a really strong opponent (Rabbitohs),’’ McInnes said.
“Everyone is feeling good. It’s how you take it. That game, win or lose, it was going to be a great experience for our team.
“I hadn’t played finals since 2018. If we can fix up a few moments, we have the team that is dangerous.’’
The Sharks will taper their training schedule to ensure the players recover this week following the dramatic extra time clash last Saturday.
Sharks skipper Wade Graham said the players are physically OK despite the gruelling contest.
“We came through it OK,” Graham said.
“Our program is about getting ourselves right. Mentally we don’t have to worry about it. It’s about being physically OK.
“Everyone is in good spirits.”
Heroic Hynes feels the burn after heartbreaking loss
-Martin Gabor
Valentine’s Day has officially been moved to September after a Sharks premiership hero came up with the biggest play of the season to move the Cowboys to within one win of the grand final.
In one of the more remarkable matches ever played, the Cowboys outlasted the Sharks 32-30 with Holmes nailing a two-point field goal from 44 metres out in the 93rd minute in a game that had everything.
Nothing will top the unforgettable finish to the 2015 Grand Final but this one deserves a spot on the podium after one of the most dramatic matches of the decade.
They were level after 40 minutes, deadlocked at full-time and couldn’t be separated at the end of extra-time
The Sharks looked set to qualify for their first preliminary final since 2018 until a clutch Peta Hiku challenge with 90 seconds remaining gave the Cowboys one last chance to send the game into extra-time.
Good teams only need a sniff and North Queensland made the most of the field position when Jason Taumalolo – who ran for a staggering 261 metres – stormed into a hole to score next to the posts. That left Holmes with a nervy conversion but he made no mistake at a ground he knows so well.
Both teams coughed up the ball in extra-time with Nicho Hynes coming up with the only field goal attempt in a frantic 10 minutes that saw Cronulla come up with a crucial challenge with 30 seconds left.
That sent the match into sudden death golden point where Holmes stood up as the hero to seal one of the most dramatic wins imaginable five years after the Cowboys also beat Cronulla in extra-time.
HYNES NEARLY THE HERO
It wasn’t the biggest crowd you’ll see for a top four clash but all 12,447 fans will buy Hynes a beer or something stronger from Northies after the former Storm utility laid on three tries on the same night his former side was bundled from the finals.
Everything the Sharks did well on Saturday night came through their halfback who has evolved from a flashy player to one of the game’s elite playmakers in the space of six months.
“He was instrumental,” coach Craig Fitzgibbon said.
“He’s had a big year and we’ll need him to be big next week.”
He threw the final pass for three tries and could have had another assist had Jesse Ramien not impeded Holmes before Connor Tracey got the ball down.
That call proved telling in the end with Sharks fans adamant that Holmes took a dive.
“I don’t think that he touched him,” Fitzgibbon said. “It’s a mixture of pride and disappointment and excitement still because we get another crack.”
GET IN THE BIN
To bin or not to bin, that is the question.
William Shakespeare would’ve loved rugby league if they had it back in his day, but not even he could answer the hottest topic of the night.
North Queensland fans would have been blowing up all week after they were denied a penalty try when Holmes was tackled off the ball as he looked to ground a Chad Townsend grubber.
The Maroons centre was leading the race but was taken off the ball by Connor Tracey who was sent to the sin bin after a Bunker review, although Fitzgibbon thought it was a harsh decision.
No one would have complained if the visitors had been awarded a penalty try, but instead they were given a numerical advantage and promptly cut the gap to six points form the ensuing shot at goal.
HIGHLIGHTS GALORE
What was supposed to be a grinding affair between the two biggest overachievers of the season turned into the most magnificent 40 minutes of the finals as the Sharks and Cowboys proved once and for all that they deserved to finish where they did.
Both teams were guilty of uncharacteristic lapses in defence but that can be forgiven when the attack was so slick.
Taumalolo threw a 25 metre cut out pass for a sensational Peta Hiku try, Cronulla’s halves combined to set up Siosifa Talakai, while Toby Rudolf and Tom Dearden scored tries that no one saw coming.
LET’S GET PHYSICAL
Paul Gallen doesn’t fight his Queensland foes until next week but it sure felt like that bout had come early with both teams throwing haymakers from the opening whistle.
Former Shark Chad Townsend had a massive target on his back every time he touched the ball, while the battle between wingers Ronaldo Mulitalo and Kyle Feldt threatened to erupt several times.
Feldt was placed on report for a crusher tackle on the Cronulla star who also got on the outside of his rival to set up Kennedy for a well-worked try late in the first half.
Watch the video that secured ‘buy of the year’
-David Riccio
Cronulla’s decision to sign Nicho Hynes as the club’s chief playmaker began on Craig Fitzgibbon’s laptop.
Alongside Sharks GM of football Darren Mooney in May late last year, Fitzgibbon sat clicking through clip after video clip of Hynes.
The blue, black and white brains-trust’s journey to produce the buy of the year began by analysing every minute of Hynes 2021 season with the Storm.
Of Hynes’ 24 games, only one was at halfback.
Fifteen were at fullback, two were at five-eighth and six were from the bench.
“The skill was obvious, the athleticism was obvious, but at critical moments, was he coming up with the right or wrong decision?,” Fitzgibbon said when asked to recall his thought process.
“Straight away, we saw his strike rate was high. That got the appetite going.”
The research mission continued.
Cronulla were on the hunt for a halfback to build their club around after deciding against extending the contract of Shaun Johnson.
The Broncos had also come in with an offer that Cronulla weren’t willing to compete with for Adam Reynolds.
When club’s are planning to invest in the position of most influence on the football field, they always circle more than one target.
Hynes may not have drawn the media reports and public’s attention like an established halfback like Reynolds was, but behind the scenes, the Sharks pursuit of the 26-year-old from Melbourne was just as serious.
Which is why the Sharks homework session was underway.
In the back of the Sharks decision-makers minds, was that the Central Coast product had played almost his entire juniors in the halves, running the show for the 2015 Manly SG Ball side that made the grand final and also featured Tom Trbojevic and Sharks teammate Jesse Ramien.
Hynes also played at the scrumbase for the Mackay Cutters, Sunshine Coast Falcons and Norths Devils in the Queensland Cup.
Still, nothing compares to steering a side in the NRL.
Fitzgibbon needed to tick every box and as much as he saw Hynes’ immense talent in a purple jersey, he needed to be certain of one key weapon in his kit-bag.
The coach and GM went back to the tape, this time of Hynes playing in the QLD Cup.
“It wasn’t a deal breaker, but we had a lot of short kicking from his Melbourne footage to watch, but there wasn’t a lot of long kicking, so we turned to his QLD Cup and Manly footage for that.
“We saw it and knew then what Nicho had.”
Hynes smiled when told of Fitzgibbon’s process of video review.
“In 2017 our Queensland Cup team just missed out on the finals and then in 2018 we sucked. We came dead last,’’ Hynes laughed.
“I had a decent year personally, and I think that’s why the Storm saw something in me.
“I have heard about Fitzy doing heaps of video on me as a half, and I didn’t know whether that was a good thing.
“Obviously it was.
“I can’t thank Fitzy and Moons enough, they’ve shown so much faith in me to be the halfback for this club.
“We’re only just getting going.’’
The hours of video footage aside, Fitzgibbon says it was a 110 km drive from Cronulla to Hynes’ home on the Central Coast that sealed the deal.
“The absolute conviction was having a conversation with him,” Fitzgibbon said.
“The first conversations were a couple of phone chats and then I spent a few hours with him in Cronulla and then taking him to see his family on the Central Coast.
“I drove him from Cronulla to up there, so we had a lot of good chats.
“We were convinced then, this is the guy we want.
“He was open to what he saw in the game, in himself and what he felt the Sharks could be.
“The fact that he had come from a strong system like Melbourne, I knew he was able to prepare and had terrific character.
“When he jumped out of the car, with what we had seen and what we knew, we knew that he was our guy.”
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