September 27, 2008

STORM 28 SHARKS 0

Regrets. Cronulla will have a few. The Sharks have waited 41 years for premiership success and after falling 28-0 to Melbourne in the second last week of 2008 they'll be trophy-less for another year at least.

Cronulla had tied at the top of the table with the Storm and Manly and, after winning a week off in the finals, hopes were building the men from the Shire could finally go all the way to the title.

But it seems the late and great coaching genius Jack Gibson was right all along when he said: "Waiting for Cronulla to win a premiership is like leaving the porch light on for Harold Holt."

Melbourne didn't just turn the lights off for Cronulla tonight, they cut off the Sharks' electricity and stole their matches.

Gone was the spark which had Cronulla enter the finals series as the only team to have beaten all other teams in the top eight.

Lost was the composure they carried for the previous 28 weeks of the competition.

And it took just three minutes for Storm stand-in captain Cooper Cronk to expose the anxiety, all 41 years of it, in the Sharks.

Cronk predicted the rush defence to get around opposing skipper Paul Gallen and find space before he grubbered ahead for Steve Turner to score.

The next 37 minutes was a football team falling apart.

Dropped balls - eight in total - and missed tackles plagued the Sharks and unfortunately for young five-eighth Blake Green, he had a horror half.

Green was called into the team after Brett Seymour's unlucky knee injury last week as the club resisted pleas from sponsors and fans to reinstate Test star Greg Bird.

Bird was stood down last month by the club over an alleged glassing incident involving his girlfriend but, with his court case looking like falling through, the club had been under increasing pressure to let him play.

Coach Ricky Stuart, though, never caved in and instead called upon Green, with just 11 NRL games under his belt, to play the club's biggest game in years.

It was a brave decision by Stuart when many others would have gone the other way.

It just wasn't Green's night.

He twice passed to teammates who didn't expect the ball, dropped it cold himself and was in the defensive line when Cronk put Israel Folau over in the 24th minute.

The Sharks trailed 16-0 at halftime and, while they improved in the second half, it was clear halfback Brett Kimmorley was lacking a playmaking helper.

Cronulla just couldn't break Melbourne's defensive line and every time they built pressure they'd ruin it with another dropped ball.

It was Cronulla's worst performance of the year - equalling the 34-6 loss to Manly in round 15.

They desperately needed Bird's gamebreaking ability.

The Sharks might have claimed a moral victory by refusing to field Bird, but that's little solace to the loyal fans who may have just seen a rare chance at premiership success pass them by.