Match 2026 Round 18 - Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks vs Brisbane Broncos - 7:35pm, Saturday 4 July @ Suncorp Stadium

Match threads
buzz67 said:
I don’t mind the aggression. Penalties are obviously a net negative, but at least night they were proper big shots for the most part. I prefer the mongrel to being docile and staying in our shell.
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Not to say this is specifically the case for you but I find this opinion is a lot more popular if we win than if we give away dumb high shots and lose
 
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49erShark said:
We point the finger at our own loser history, our soft culture and our own players, the coach, Harold Holt whatever. It simply doesn't appear justified. And it never was. We are now 2 penalties a game worse off than the average, after last night our differential is now almost 3 times worse than the next worst team the Broncos. We are nearly 4 penalties a game worse off than the Warriors whose fan base nevertheless still believes they are getting shafted every week.
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We do get a lot of fans agreeing the atmosphere at home games is often underwhelming.
That could definitely play a part in getting a few less calls our way at home games.
No doubt there’s 20k+ kiwis raging at the ref anytime Watene-Zeleznimilk has one of his hairs touch an arm.
 
49erShark said:
But we receive less penalties than anyone so our differential penalties for and against is far worse. My argument is simply that last year up until origin and the baby Roosters game we were the least penalised team and rolling. Then Robbo whinged in the media and everything changed. Why was that? Why don't we all whinge about it and get it changed because statistically it is getting beyond ridiculous.View attachment 35198 I’m
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Robbo’s comments on that occasion were calculated , considered and ultimately successful .
I completely understand the high shot penalties but it’s the discretionary penalties that are killing us - and we are not getting them in return.
An equally considered response is required by Fitz .
Ironically , I believe Sutton has reffed ok this year , and has attended our training sessions to help with our discipline issues .
All of this taken into consideration makes it difficult to comprehend the discrepancies ..
 
bort said:
Not to say this is specifically the case for you but I find this opinion is about more popular if we win than if we give away dumb high shots and lose
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The best 'aggression' played with in recent memory was against the Warriors a few weeks ago.

We were sprinting up in defence all game and were all over them.

Then, against Roosters we tried to be aggressive with our smack talk and it back fired big time.
 
Was looking at the NRL website and noticed we had more possession and time with the ball despite less actual sets.

Not sure what this means, but it means something.
 

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Guardshark said:
Was looking at the NRL website and noticed we had more possession and time with the ball despite less actual sets.

Not sure what this means, but it means something.
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10-5 penalty count and 2-1 6-again count in their favour, those are completed sets.

It's far from perfectly accurate but if you remove those you could call it
Brisbane 22/33 67%
Sharks 26/35 74% and we'd presumably have more time in possession with more sets and more completed sets
 
bort said:
10-5 penalty count and 2-1 6-again count in their favour, those are completed sets.

It's far from perfectly accurate but if you remove those you could call it
Brisbane 22/33 67%
Sharks 26/35 74% and we'd presumably have more time in possession with more sets and more completed sets
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Yeah this.

Doing this for most games is close to accurate except for penalties in possession. E.g. Berrell out of play, Cody Walker decides to kick someone, player in front of kicker, etc.
 
Its not actually possession or completion rate overall that makes the difference. It's a run of possession over a long period which screws teams.

Here is last year's Broncos game. The bracket here starts with the bad knock on call on Ronnie when the Sharks were up 28-12 and ends in the set after Brisbane take the lead. This is ~23 minutes of game play.

Starting with the Ronnie one the Broncos get a huge run of favourable calls from the ref and have the ball for 13 of the next 18 sets (about 70% possession for 23 minutes). Sharks get some late possession but are too gassed to do much with it.

This is 2025 but a pretty good example of a 2026-PVL-ball game. Possession finished 50/50 overall but the points came in bunches on the back of large ref-influenced possession swings.


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Didn't watch the game but after reading through some of the comments I take it the game went smoothly for the Sharks with no dramas or fan complaints
 
bort said:
Still ref blaming a year later smh
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Ref was crap that day but that's not really my point.... and tbf I wasn't on the forum when this game was played.

From a cause/effect PoV what is going on in 2026 was also going on at the back end of 2025 - and completions / overall possession don't matter if a string of calls go against you (rightly or wrongly) for 20+ minutes.

Biggest challenge in the NRL right now is how to circuit-break these patches in game. We can say the players are weak or unfit or whatever but a few years ago stetches of possession like this were extremely rare. Now happening weekly. Expected even.
 
Sharks NRL Prospects said:
Biggest challenge in the NRL right now is how to circuit-break these patches in game. We can say the players are weak or unfit or whatever but a few years ago stetches of possession like this were extremely rare. Now happening weekly. Expected even.
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Yeah, we've seen a few games this season where we have had bad runs against us we have kind of held on through, only to be run down heavily in the end

Unfortunately most of the obvious answers to reverse the flow aren't easy

- try and force an error (making yourself more likely to make a mistake or penalty in doing so)
- take more risk with the ball (harder off the backfoot with no field position, compounds issue if it doesn't work)
- kick a 40/20 (easier said than done or we'd see a lot more of them, especially on back foot)
- grind it out, hope you don't fatigue too much when the counts happen to start evening up
 
Sharks NRL Prospects said:
Ref was crap that day but that's not really my point.... and tbf I wasn't on the forum when this game was played.

From a cause/effect PoV what is going on in 2026 was also going on at the back end of 2025 - and completions / overall possession don't matter if a string of calls go against you (rightly or wrongly) for 20+ minutes.

Biggest challenge in the NRL right now is how to circuit-break these patches in game. We can say the players are weak or unfit or whatever but a few years ago stetches of possession like this were extremely rare. Now happening weekly. Expected even.
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We were completely written off in the semis last year but they seemed to game plan being hit with a penalty onslaught from the get go against Roosters and Raiders. They absorbed massive amount of possession and territory for the first 25 in both games, roper doped it and then struck back and took the lead in the ten minutes before half time in both games.

Against Melbourne the NRL predictably reverted to Melbourne being handed the ruck dominance they have had for years, a whole generation really and we got wiped. Probably were a bit burnt out from the previous two big efforts to put in another one.

That Broncos game was a travesty but it was the first indication that the Broncos were going to be ref managed all the way to the big one. It was the blue print game and maybe Fitz learned something from it, at least how to be mentally prepared.

Will be interesting to see what happens with Origin tonight and over the next few weeks. I'd be a lot more confident if it wasn't just crickets regarding the penalty situation we're having to weather but any media attention or social media back lash is clearly not going to happen.
 
49erShark said:
Will be interesting to see what happens with Origin tonight and over the next few weeks. I'd be a lot more confident if it wasn't just crickets regarding the penalty situation we're having to weather but any media attention or social media back lash is clearly not going to happen.
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I'm gonna guess not much mate.
 
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