James Maloney says Cronulla will need to produce the best game of their year against Cowboys

JAMES Maloney says Cronulla will need to produce the best 80 minutes of their year against North Queensland this Friday night.

JAMES Maloney says Cronulla will need to produce the best 80 minutes of their year against North Queensland this Friday night, stressing: “Anything less and we finish up disappointed”.

Despite having beaten every team still involved in the NRL playoffs, Maloney insists the Sharks must find another level again to topple the defending premiers at Allianz Stadium.

In fact, the NSW No.6 says his team will have to outdo every one of their greatest wins this year which, apart from an undefeated run of 15 games, also includes beating the Cowboys by three in Round 14, scoring 62 unanswered points against Newcastle and hanging tough to beat Canberra in week one of the playoffs.

Maloney understands the size of the Sharks’ challenge. Pic: Gregg Porteous.

“We’ve definitely put ourselves in position to do something special,’’ Maloney said. “But we’ll need to play the best 80 minutes of our season this Friday night.

“That’s what it will take to beat the Cowboys. Anything less and we finish up disappointed. So we need to make sure we’re on.”

After switching from the Roosters over summer, Maloney said repeatedly in interviews that he joined Cronulla because, apart from their obvious grunt up front, he also saw real strikepower in backline stars like Ben Barba, Jack Bird and Valentine Holmes.

In short, Maloney believed the Sharks were premiership material.

Reminded of that this week, he grinned: “It’s worked out exactly how I pictured, yeah.

“And hopefully now we can do something with it.

“I knew what this roster was capable of. I knew there was a really strong pack to play behind and I knew they had some kids coming through, some outside backs who could find points. And the belief is there.

“You only have to look at our win against Canberra in week one of the finals. To win after being down on troops, down 12-nil, mentally it really puts you in a good headspace.

“Guys here know that it doesn’t matter if we lose players, if the opposition score points early ... no matter the scenario we can deal with it. We’ve been there before.

“Throughout the year we’ve come home late, started fast and then hung on ... that should put us in good stead for what lays ahead.”

Cronulla have the quality to go all the way, Maloney says. Pic: Mark Evans.

Despite losing four of their final five competition round games — to Canberra, St George Illawarra, South Sydney and Melbourne — Maloney said he always knew the team would be ready for finals football.

“Coming onto the finals a lot of people had already made their own opinions of our form,’’ he said. “But I really thought we were alright.

“From the Souths game, three weeks out, we took a step towards where we needed to be. Then we beat the Roosters and against Melbourne, we were alright bar some execution.

“We opened them up and created opportunities, we just couldn’t finish. And while people took that a lot of different ways, I thought we were right where we needed to be.”