NRL finals 2024: Cronulla Sharks star Nicho Hynes turns off social media to drown out noise ahead of Cowboys clash
In a wide-ranging interview, Sharks star Nicho Hynes opens up on how he shuts out the outside noise, Cronulla’s horror finals record and his motivation behind beating the Cowboys.
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Nicho Hynes can tell you plenty about Kevin Costner’s character John Dutton in Yellowstone.
But ask the Sharks star about the intense opinions, views and current debate from the rugby league world about both his and the Sharks finals form and he apologises for not being across the latest headlines.
In particular, that of Fox League’s Greg Alexander, who suggested that Hynes be replaced by rookie Daniel Atkinson for Cronulla’s huge elimination final clash with the Cowboys at Allianz Stadium on Friday night.
“Is that what he (Alexander) said?,’’ Hynes replied.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any of it because I’m off social media at the moment. It’s not a worry of mine.
“I don’t watch much TV, I don’t buy newspapers. If I’m going to watch TV, it’s Netflix.
“I’m watching Yellowstone and I’m really enjoying it.”
Smiling and seemingly clear of mind at training on Tuesday, the Sharks halfback shirked any suggestion of baggage following the Sharks 37-10 heavy loss to the Storm in a qualifying final last Saturday.
“I’ve been wanting a moment like this forever,” Hynes said of tackling the Cowboys.
“I want to win finals games, I want to play in grand finals, we want to compete for grand finals.
“This whole club is just hungry as for it. We are ready to go again.
“We just need a team effort. We need 17 players going out there and playing their best footy, and I need to play my best footy.
“If we do that then that’s going to go a long way to winning the game. We need to play good footy and not worry about the outside noise and what’s going on.
“We’ll have no distractions and just train hard tomorrow and prepare well for captain’s run and play a good game on Friday night.”
FINALS RECORD
Hynes said he had no issue addressing Cronulla’s finals record of 0-7 since 2018, while admitting he needed to take his game to another level.
“From 2022, I was still fresh and had only played halfback for 20 games I think it was,” Hynes said.
“In that Cowboys game (elimination final) I felt like I played a pretty good game but we didn’t get the result.
“The Roosters game last year was similar – we only lost by a field goal as well.
“The game on the weekend was one where I probably needed to be better and I’ll own that performance.
“As a team as a whole we need to be better.
“They (Storm) had 73 per cent possession and completed 44/46 (sets) and we had 12 errors.
“We need to be better in all areas to win this game of football (on Friday night), and I still need to own performances and I need to own my performance to get us in a position to win the game.”
CAPTAIN CAM
Sharks skipper Cameron McInnes came out swinging for his playmaker, stating that Hynes wasn’t entirely to blame for the Storm loss.
“I don’t mean to offend anyone (his critics), but I think it is a lazy opinion,” McInnes said.
“Then what happens is, everyone else jumps on it, and echoes the same thing ‘oh, yeah let’s blame Nicho’. That’s the way I look at it.
“It’s definitely unfair. No one did their job against Melbourne. If we had done our job Nicho would have shown what he is capable of doing.
“If you watch the game back, our performances as individuals and that’s myself included wasn’t to scratch.
“But he’s the only one that gets written about. It’s a lazy narrative. It’s like I’ll just write about that because it’s easy. That’s the way I look at it.
“Who watched the game against Manly the week before?,” McInnes said.
“No one said anything then. Fast forward one week and the team doesn’t perform well and that gets brought out again.”
KICK FOR TOUCH
The major blot on Hynes’ performance against the Storm was a failure to find touch after being awarded a penalty.
While admitting there were no excuse for his shank, Hynes gave an interesting insight into why it went embarrassingly wrong with the sticky spray player’s use to gain a greater grip on the football impacting the half-back’s correct ball-drop just as he was about to kick it.
“That’s the one thing that I look back on and think that’s where I made an error,” Hynes said.
“It (ball) held onto me (due to the sticky spray), then it fell and I just kicked it.
“I need to be better there. I need to hold the ball better and take my time. It’s my job to kick it out.”
As for the rest of his game against the Storm, Hynes said: “Everyone is going to talk about my game and the game control, but I don’t think we were in that game for a lot of it. Everyone will keep speculating.
“The game (two weeks ago) that we played against Manly, we probably did what Melbourne did to us so it’s not too far away. ”Melbourne showed us a really good brand of football and how to win field position and suffocate the opposition, so we’ve learnt a lot of lessons and it’s about turning it around and doing what they did to us to the Cowboys.
“We learnt from it quickly and we know we’re a much better team than that so we’re all guns blazing.”
SIXES AND SEVENS
Following eight weeks out with a foot injury, Hynes has eased his way back into the Sharks side over the past three weeks by playing a far less dominant role, with a large majority of the time playing five-eighth alongside halfback Braydon Trindall.
It has led to debate across the game as to which position – fullback, five-eighth or halfback – suits him best.
“I’ll do whatever is best suited for the team,” Hynes said.
“It all depends on Tricky’s (Trindall’s) development and where he sees himself.
“And where Fitzy (Craig Fitzgibbon) sees me.
“He signed me as a halfback and I want to play halfback.
“I want to play any position the club wants me to play.
“But right now I am wearing No.7 and that is where they think I am best suited.
“I don’t see myself changing position any time soon. But I will just do whatever Fitzy thinks and whatever the coaching staff think.
“I am not bigger than the club, no one is. I’m playing No.7 this weekend and that’s all that matters.”
OFF SOCIALS
Hynes said his decision to remove himself from social media was largely due to the spotlight that he knew would come his way during the finals.
“I knew coming back from injuries (three weeks ago) and going into the finals, that no one is going to help me on there (social media),” Hynes said.
“The only people who are going to help me are the people here (at Sharks) and the players.
“I don’t want to go on there and search for someone to talk negative about me or positive. It’s just pointless.
“I knew that once I was back from injury I just wanted to focus on football.”
STADIUM ADDRESS
In his final press conference before Friday night’s clash at Allianz Stadium, Hynes didn’t mince his words in both a rallying cry to Sharks fans with an additional message to the government for funding support to help refurbish PointsBet Stadium.
“It would’ve been ideal to play here (PointsBet Stadium),’’ Hynes said.
“It probably shows you that the government need to do something to fix this stadium so that we can hold a final.
“If the Cowboys were in our position (fourth), they’d be hosting us up there (Townsville).
“The Storm get their home final, so hopefully the Sharks fans do a really good job of travelling to Allianz and getting the number for us.’’
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