Graham, Maloney spearhead Sharks to rousing win over scrappy Raiders

WADE Graham’s career-first try treble and a James Maloney masterclass spearheaded premiers Cronulla to a rousing win over Canberra on Saturday night.

Wade Graham scores a try. Picture: AAP

A CAREER-FIRST Wade Graham hat-trick and a James Maloney masterclass gave the defending premiers a 42-16 win against Canberra last night.

Graham – who only scored two tries throughout the entire of last season – and Maloney combined to terrorise Canberra’s right edge defence, causing plenty of heartaches for Blake Austin and Joey Leilua. Four of Cronulla’s seven tries happened on their left edge with Maloney – who also kicked a timely 40/20 - laying on three and Graham setting up one of his own to give Cronulla their first win of the season.

Jack Bird – the club’s third string fullback- impressed at the back while rookie hooker Jayden Brailey continued to show he is more than an adequate fill-in for the retired Michael Ennis.

Cronulla led by just two points at half-time but raced in 30 unanswered second half points to shock the Raiders in front of 15807 people.

Wade Graham scores one of his three tries against the Raiders on Saturday night. Picture: AAP

The match was a far cry from the two point thrilling victory to Cronulla when the teams last met in the qualifying final at the same venue.

While both teams were willing and played with plenty of intent the opening exchanges asked the quality which saw the two sides rise towards last year’s premiership – before Cronulla turned up the heat in the second half. The conditions will not be any better for a match at GIO Stadium this year, but the home side struggled with their handling making seven first half errors and completing six of their first 11 sets. Cronulla made five first half errors.

The defensive workload took its toll on the Raiders who struggled to overcome a poor first half.

Mistakes were made to pay in the opening half. Cronulla opened the scoring via a Maloney penalty goal but their lead did not last another tackle after prop Andrew Fifita spilt the ball on the kick off return. A wide shift from the scrum base gave Jack Wighton just enough space to get on the outside of makeshift centre Kurt Capewell for the Raiders to lead 4-2 after 15 minutes.

Sharks fullback Jack Bird takes on the Canberra Raiders line on Saturday night. Picture: Getty Images

Bird laid on Cronulla’s next try with the assistance of Maloney. The two combined to send centre Ricky Leutele over the try-line with Leutele catching opposite Leilua slow to react on the wide-shift.

The Cronulla left edge again provided the next points when Blake Austin was caught short after rushing out of the line with Maloney laying on a try for Graham to open up a 12-4 lead after 33 minutes.

Austin wasted little time to extract some revenge sliding between Graham and Maloney with a trademark show and go before racing 40 metres to set up Jordan Rapana to have the home side trailing by two at half-time.

Cronulla led by 10 eight minutes into the second half via a Brailey try and two goals to Maloney.

Two second half tries to Graham in the space of four minutes gave the Sharks an unbeatable 20 point lead. Maloney and half Chad Townsend combined for Graham’s second try of the match while he took it upon himself to score his third, crashing over from dummy half.

Graham – searching for his fourth try – again darted out from dummy half before helping prop Matt Prior to a try. Skipper Paul Gallen ended Cronulla’s points spree before Wighton had his second try on the stroke of full-time.

CRONULLA 42 (W Graham 3, J Brailey, P Gallen, R Leutele, M Prior tries; J Maloney 7 goals) bt CANBERRA 16 (J Wighton 2, J Rapana tries; A Sezer 2 goals) at GIO Stadium. Referee: Chris James, Ashley Klein. Crowd: 15,807.