Although there won’t be a change of leadership following the Sharks’ 13–12 loss to the Roosters in the first round elimination match, it will be interesting to see where the 2016 premiers stand in their premiership window.
The 2023 season ended with a loss to the Roosters at Pointsbet Stadium. Although it was not as shocking as the team’s 10 minute (plus extra time) brain freeze in the first week of the 2022 finals, the fact that Cronulla was overwhelmingly favored in the circumstances and they were still unable to seal the deal was more worrying.
One of Cronulla’s greatest servants, Wade Graham is now heading to the big edge forward farm in the sky. With no new players signed for 2024, the team that lost to the Roosters will essentially be the same come season’s end.
Are they a rising team that will have their best players locked away for the foreseeable future, or are they a fringe top eight team that will find it difficult to develop their current group of players?
Below, Sporting News delves deeply into the Cronulla Sharks’ campaign.
In 2022, did the Sharks perform better or worse than expected?
In our preseason predictions, we predicted the Sharks to finish sixth, and that’s exactly where they did. Even though they lost in straight sets in 2022, there was a lot of hope that the defense would play more like what supporters would have expected from a team led by Craig Fitzgibbon and that the attack would keep improving with Nicho Hynes in charge.
That was not the case. The Sharks therefore fell short of expectations.
The attack finished with the fifth-highest points total in the NRL, occasionally capitalizing on the slingshot attack Hynes and fullback Will Kennedy favor. But more points were conceded than by any other team in the top eight, excluding the Canberra Raiders, by the much-maligned defense, particularly on the left.
The Sharks gave up 15 points a game in 2022. That increased to 20 in 2023.
When did the Sharks’ 2023 season collapse?
Round 15. The Sharks’ 54-10 thrashing at the hands of the Storm solidified what had only been a hunch up until that point: they wouldn’t be able to compete with the best teams in 2023.
Although the Sharks ended the season in fifth place after the loss and would have done so had they defeated the Knights in round 26, the manner in which they lost their next few games was telling.
Before defeating the slipping Rabbitohs in Perth, Cronulla defeated the teams they were predicted to beat, scoring points against the Wests Tigers, Dragons, and Bulldogs. However, from rounds 20 to 22, the team’s weaknesses were revealed.
The score of 44–12 against the Warriors in Auckland seems flattering in some way, but the home loss to the Sea Eagles the next week is a good indicator of your outlook on life. Positively, the Sharks almost pulled off a historic victory over a legendary opponent, but ultimately lost 30-26 despite scoring 26 consecutive points in the second half.
The drawback is that they gave up 24 points in the first half and realized too little after Tolu Koula’s try in the 44th minute.
Finally, the Sharks were shut out, 28-0, in Penrith, a game that was dominated by a record-breaking number of tackles made by Cam McInnes and a masterclass by Nathan Cleary.
