Shane Flanagan says Cronulla need to find motivation beyond their 2016 premiership
CRONULLA coach Shane Flanagan knows his side can win another premiership but he won’t be using their first ever title as motivation.
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CRONULLA coach Shane Flanagan knows his side can win another premiership but he won’t be using their first ever title as motivation.
In fact, Flanagan even made the frank admission he got it wrong by using their historic 2016 season as inspiration to go back-to-back in 2017.
“Can we win the comp again? Of course we can,” he said.
“But we can’t replicate ‘16. We don’t refer back to it anymore.
“We just concentrate on what we’re doing now and the journey we are on this year and enjoy that.
“We’re not looking back to ‘16 ... I think that was a big error on my part ... especially last year to keep referring back to it.”
Flanagan says this time around he went into 2018 season with a clean slate and wasn’t looking to emulate the heroics of 2016.
Rather, he wants his 2018 side to add their own chapter to the club’s history.
“We’ve approached it like this is a new journey,” he said.
“This is a new team, a new journey, we’ve got new players in there, we’re celebrating the style of footy we’re playing and the players in my team.”
The quest for consecutive trophies proved to be a learning curve for Flanagan who says the comparisons proved costly and they should have been shut down instead of encouraged.
“We were inexperienced,” he said.
“Obviously wining the first competition, I hadn't experienced it.
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“I should have knocked it on the head straight away ... [we should have approached] it as a new journey, something we needed to get on with, and we probably didn’t in 2017.
“We kept referring back to what we did: ‘if we could get back to it, we’ll win in 2017’.
“It wasn’t the case, we just needed to start again.
“This year we learned our lesson.”
The Sharks head into Sunday’s clash against Newcastle riding high on the back of a five-game winning streak.
Their peak in form has been by design to ensure they get through the representative rounds without being hurt on the ladder.
“At the start of the year we probably thought we’d have four or five missing. I don’t know if that’s going to be the case,” Flanagan said.
“We’ve set ourselves a bit of a goal to get to the Origin period, not how many games we’ve won, but just playing really good football and giving ourselves the best opportunity to get through that period.
“We’re in pretty good shape.”
In a boost, co-captain Wade Graham [hamstring] and backrower Luke Lewis [calf] have both been named to return from injury.
“Luke and Wade could have probably played last week. Wade came back and re-injured his hamstring a month ago ... Luke is a calf strain so obviously with the type of injuries we wanted to make sure they were 100 per cent and there was no chance of coming in and re-injuring and having to leave the field,” he said.
“They’re both fine, ready to go.”
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