Flagship Episode with Sam Shinazzi and Kieran Fraser (7/8/24)

[00:00:00] SharkCast! SharkCast! SharkCast! SharkCast! Hey there, welcome to SharkCast Podcast, dedicated to the greatest sporting club in the history of the world, the mighty Cronulla Southland Sharks. This is the Flagship Show, the weekly show. It's our 10th season. My name is Sam Shinazzi and OG from that season 2015.

[00:00:48] And this show is brought to you by Dyson Logistics, the Royal Mediocre Club Import Hacking and Jason Hawes at Crips and Crips Real Estate. Thank you so much for tuning in, watching on the YouTube, listening on the podcast.

[00:01:01] And it is my great pleasure to bring in our good friend, our regular colleague. He usually appears on a Monday morning but he's a travelling man at the moment. So sometimes we can't do those yesterday instead of getting Kieran.

[00:01:17] Getting Kieran, you got Dan Atkinson and you got his hero, Sione Kitele who we're going to talk about. That was on an episode that popped up yesterday. Right now is the Flagship. Kieran Fraser, how are you my friend?

[00:01:33] Feeling good. It was a good game on the weekend. It was stressful but they eventually kicked away. Now we've got a nice game come up, that's the Titans. So looking forward to it. I wish it was a home game but hey, just play the cards that were dealt.

[00:01:45] Interesting you used the word good game. Good result, not a good game by any stretch of the imagination. It was a pretty poor game I thought all around from both teams. I thought obviously we did enough to win. I thought we were the better team.

[00:01:58] And positives, keeping a team at six points. Two out of the last three games. Defensively they were attacking us for a while. We held them out. So a lot of positives there but as a spectacle wasn't much fun.

[00:02:10] Couple of cool tries in the second half got us home. Let me ask you straight up Kieran, from memory who stood out for you as being a positive? The Sharks players. Anyone put their hand up and say hey I'm here and I'm trying to impress you?

[00:02:24] It was one of those games where it was just kind of doubt. And it just didn't feel like we ever got out of that second gear. And South seemed to get every call, every bounce of the ball.

[00:02:35] They weren't really throwing a lot at the Sharks but it just seemed to be defending and just not really going anywhere. I thought Trindle had one of these sort of games where he kind of carried us.

[00:02:48] So again that's a bit of a concern for this week because he was one of the better players. But we were just quickly looking at the stats. You know, Iroh had a monster game with the ball.

[00:02:57] Ramian as well. So again those sort of guys kind of carried us through. But I did think that our forwards outside of Toby's stint off the bench were a little bit quiet.

[00:03:07] But other than that mate I thought it was kind of a game where the backs kind of just kind of carried us and it was just dour. Toby had another strong week.

[00:03:15] We know he was put back into reserves for a week but he's been back for two games, had two pretty good games. I thought he was our best forward. I mean guys like Cam McInnes, Tig Wilton got some really good meters.

[00:03:27] I didn't think they were overly dominating in the match. Royce looked good in his first stint. But yeah one of those games that just happened to get two points move on.

[00:03:37] I came up with a stat today Kieran and you already know about it but I'm going to tell the world. And that is that our right edge of Jesse Ramian and Sione Katoa, they've only let in eight tries together in that channel of the field.

[00:03:50] And that's the fewest in the whole comp. And that really stood out to me when I read that. I was like we've got the best right edge defense in the comp. Now that doesn't take you to the premiership.

[00:04:01] But that's something to hang your hat on if those two guys. That's something to be really proud of. Those two guys have been defending next to each other since I think 2017 in the 20s. So they've got a bit of a combination that's obviously been developed.

[00:04:14] Now Nikora is obviously on that side as well. And I think you're switching in Niko in and out of that sort of team because again he's been in and out for this sort of season.

[00:04:24] So the fact that you've kind of not had that continuity this year with your half as well is kind of a good sign. But that makes me then question well where are the points being leaked from? Because I look at that and I get the right.

[00:04:37] It's awesome but obviously we can see some points sometimes. So I think we know where those points are coming. It's not all on the left. Like the center is also an option.

[00:04:47] But that edge particularly lately has been a bit of an issue between Ronnie and Iroh and whoever else is over that side. So I'm not trying to point out that. I just want to focus on that strong right edge.

[00:04:59] Let's not forget Cione was not the greatest defender coming into the grade or even in his first few years. But he's a guy that just worked his butt off. Like he's worked and worked and worked on every aspect of his game.

[00:05:11] We'll get to the letters a bit later on. I had a lot of good feedback about the interview I did with him yesterday on Monday which you can go listen to on the last episode. Look we know he's not a huge talker when you hit record.

[00:05:22] But he's so humble, polite and thoughtful when he speaks. It's really it's kind of I hate to use this word but it's kind of cute. Like I would say to him, hey Cione how do you think you guys are going? You're improving? Yes, yes we're improving.

[00:05:36] He sort of repeats the question. And he's sort of like you want to go well okay but how are you? Like you have to sort of prod him a little bit. But he gets there and he's awesome.

[00:05:46] One question I forgot to ask and I was going to ask and then I asked off air because I'd forgotten and the interview was over. Was why he's so angry at officials these days and he laughed his head off. He's like how do you know that?

[00:05:58] I said Cione you're on national TV. Like I see everything you know. I said two weeks in a row you've given it a touchy. He said you know what he said? He said it's a true story. He said yes, yes I need to apologize to him.

[00:06:12] He was definitely angry on the weekend. I saw him a number of times with his hands in his hair absolutely spraying the touchy. So that's hilarious. He's a sweet dude but yeah playing really great football.

[00:06:22] We talk about a young fella who we can only judge on a couple of games in the top level. We've seen him a bunch at lower level. He's got a long way to go, big future ahead of him.

[00:06:32] But what are we making of Sam Stonestreet at the moment? I see a guy that has huge potential. Great speed, not the worst defender I've ever seen. Not bad under the high ball. I think he's just got ways to go in his game.

[00:06:45] I'm really happy he's getting some time in the top grade. But he doesn't look quite there for me yet. He doesn't look like a week in, week out first grader yet. Now maybe he needs 10, 20 games to get to that point.

[00:06:52] So I'm not kind of being judgmental at all. I'm just sort of telling you what I think. And I wouldn't mind seeing him put on a kilogram or two either. I'm a huge Stonestreet fan.

[00:07:00] I was a big fan of him in the 20s and I've seen him play a fair bit in the lower grades. And I think one of the things with him is he's never really had a chance to own that spot that he's kind of getting right now.

[00:07:12] So that was only his second ever game in first grade. And that was so far long ago from his first game in first grade. And when you take in the last few years that he might have had with COVID and 2020, 2021, those were real development years for him.

[00:07:27] And then kind of getting back on the field 2022, 2023. Now he's only played two games in first grade and they were like months apart. So I think he's just kind of a little bit more of a player than he was in the 20s.

[00:07:38] He's played two games in first grade and they were like months apart. So I think him having this block is really good for him.

[00:07:45] And I think at the end of this he will feel very confident because I don't think he's looking over his shoulder thinking, I'm going to get dropped next week. I think he's kind of being told that look Ronnie will come back and Ronnie will get his spot.

[00:07:57] But you've now got a month to prove yourself because again come November 1st you're up contract and we want to keep you. But you need to show us that you are going to be a first grader.

[00:08:05] And again, we talk about this all the time, but the way the roster management and salary cap works, there is a scenario where maybe Ronnie doesn't stay with us after next season. And that spot is stone's trees to cement down.

[00:08:18] So we're going to get a really good look at him over the next four weeks. And I think at the end of the four weeks we'll have a lot better sample size to judge him. But I just think these two games were just so far apart.

[00:08:29] And I think last time he was filling in for Catoa too. Yes, those two different sides of the field. Exactly, right? So that's a big ask for somebody to come in, play two games, different sides of the field and without that continuity

[00:08:42] and knowing when he was replacing Catoa that he wasn't going to be there the next week as well. So I just think that he's going to take a little bit of time. But from what I've seen in the lower grades, he's definitely got a lot in him.

[00:08:52] Yeah, for sure. And I've seen enough in the top grade that I like what I see. I think it's going to take a bit of time. I think we're maybe, we all get so excited by a local junior, true local junior jumping in.

[00:09:04] And we not so much expect the world, but we kind of want the world for them. You know, one of his first touches, he scored a try in his first game. And it's just a great story.

[00:09:16] But yeah, I want to see him in a month's time and then kind of look at him again and go, well, he's had six games now in first grade. Let's talk about him. I thought Will Kennedy, he's copying a bit of a grilling online,

[00:09:28] which you can't always take completely seriously, but it is a gauge of say how some people feel. He's got an error in him, Will, but I thought he ran the ball really nicely. He's got this swagger about him. Very kind of peachy like at the moment.

[00:09:42] He's fairly safe under the high ball. He sort of seems to have one howler in the game now, but I was really impressed with him over the weekend. The critics of Kennedy is probably the same critics of Ronaldo and Catoa,

[00:09:52] but the answer to that that they will put out there is, hey, we need to throw these kids in. And there is a reality to that that we've saw with Sam on the weekend is that you just can't throw these kids in

[00:10:03] and expect them to perform at the levels that they performed in the lower grades in first grade. So, okay, if Kennedy's not the answer, he's here for another 12 months. So what's your solution? Is it to bring in Eisen again?

[00:10:17] Well, we saw Eisen the week before and yet he was targeted. Youngfella played really well, but again, there is a reality to that. So I think the skill is really to bring in these players around these guys to keep the pressure on them,

[00:10:30] but to also make sure that there is that continuity throughout the team. So from my perspective, I look at Kennedy and I go, we know what we're going to get from Kennedy. He's a very solid player. He might have an error or two in him here and there,

[00:10:42] but you know what you're going to get. There's a level of professionalism from Kennedy now that he's got a standard that he can kind of keep. You can argue we might need more from that position.

[00:10:52] I can see that argument, but again, it's a salary cap sport and we've spent money in other areas. So to me, that's a different discussion, but for Kennedy, for mine, he's doing his job. What did you make of the halves?

[00:11:04] I thought that Trinder was really great, probably our best player out there. I like what Dan Atkinson is doing. I probably need to see a little bit more of the running game and the, I guess, assisting tries, line breaks, etc., that kind of thing.

[00:11:16] But I think he's doing a job. And I thought they both had really good moments on the weekend again. I thought Trinder kind of stole the show, but do you need to see more from Atkinson at the moment? Are you happy with how he's going?

[00:11:28] I think he's probably in that same boat of Stone Street, right? Where now he's getting a little bit more confident in that role that he's got and he's kind of knowing that that's his jersey at the moment.

[00:11:37] And if he can just nail down his spot, he's got a chance to be that utility for us. If that pass to say Katoa that he throws isn't pulled forward, his stat sheet looks a lot different. So he's almost there.

[00:11:50] But again, I think it's an experience thing and also not rushing things. You're playing in front of a shark park crowd that's full. I mean, it's just that comes with experience, right? So there's enough there that I'm seeing that I think he can do a job.

[00:12:03] But yeah, obviously it goes back against that inexperience thing. And we'll touch on it later for our 17th of this week.

[00:12:08] Inexperience is starting to come through and maybe that's a price that we're paying because we haven't had a lot of injuries to our back line, especially over the last two or three years since Fitzie's been here.

[00:12:19] So a lot of those guys are only getting their chance now and a lot of those guys are getting their chances together. So guys like Atkinson are kind of being thrown in there with different combinations with different players.

[00:12:29] And that's a little bit disjointed because the shark's performance in that first half especially looked very disjointed. So Sifatallakei, just looking at his stats, he actually played more minutes than what I thought because I know he went to the centre for a little bit.

[00:12:41] So he played half the game. Now when he went to centre right in front of where we sit, he exploded and set up his winger, Cale Ero who set up Trindle for a great try.

[00:12:54] And then we were all like, well if this is what he can do at centre, I wonder if there's an option here to kind of, you know, stone streets out but he came back. So that kind of quashed that.

[00:13:04] It's great having Talaqai being able to play 34 different positions. It's awesome. I need more out of him than 40 minutes though, I reckon, to get the most out of him, to get the team where we need to be. I think you need more than 40 minutes from Talaqai.

[00:13:18] And we saw it with that run, right? Where he drew in three defenders and pulled Ero away, right? So perhaps in this four week block there is a chance where we look at it and say, you know what, Cale, we're going to move you to the wing.

[00:13:29] Sifat, we're going to put you back to the centres. I just think for Sifat, he's been so consistent for us this season and whatever we've asked of him to do, he's done it. He's performed in the middle. He's performed in the back row. He's performed in the centres.

[00:13:44] He doesn't complain. He doesn't win. He's not a guy that's saying, oh, I was playing State of Origin in the past, I want to get back to that level. I demand to be playing 80 minutes every single week.

[00:13:52] You know, Phil Bailey, for example, when we had him, you know, he was a guy that was saying, well I played State of Origin in the centres, you know, or I should be, you know, a feature and a high paid player.

[00:14:00] He's like, you know, I want the team to win. I'll do whatever it takes.

[00:14:04] So I look at that and go, I can see value in Sifat playing in the centres, but I just think that the club has made that effort to try and make him back into a middle.

[00:14:13] And I don't think we're being fair to Sifat by moving him into the middle, moving him back to the edge. And I know he's okay with it, but I think we need Sifat playing and we need Sifat playing big minutes.

[00:14:24] But I think we've got to agree on as a team, we need him playing that lock role a little bit more. Or the centre role exclusively. I'm happy with that too, because I actually think he's a really good centre.

[00:14:35] But I think the chopping and changing of him is again not fair to him. We had McInnes play lock in this game against Souths. Talakai was the unofficial lock on the bench. This week it's going to be different again, which we'll get into later on.

[00:14:50] But I guess it's going to be hard for him to play 80 minutes of football if you're starting off the bench and then you're obviously off the bench. It's less than 80 minutes, but you're then going to the middle, but then there's an injury out wide.

[00:15:04] I guess we need someone to do that right? We need a utility and that's him at the moment. If you were to go to 17 and you said who is one of the better guys that could cover back row, cover centre that you want to put on your bench.

[00:15:18] Talakai would be arguably the best option for any team in the competition for that guy that could cover those two roles. Kurt Cable is probably in that mould too, but again I'm taking Sifir over Kurt Cable every day of the week.

[00:15:30] Not in modern day. We love Kurt. We're his biggest fans on the show. But that time has probably passed in that role. Exactly and the impact that Sifir gives you right now is just so much explosive.

[00:15:41] You can see those centres and there were some young Souths players out there on the edge when Sifir was running against them. He would do the play in the ball.

[00:15:49] It was almost like they were breathing a sigh of relief because the ball was going to the other side of the field. And you don't get that from everybody. But we'll touch on it later with the 17 this week.

[00:15:58] Maybe that was a chance to start Sifir instead of Jack Williams, but maybe we look at him as a team and we look at it as a unit. We say we just need that punch off the bench. But I don't know.

[00:16:09] Did you realise that the video ref's husband was in the South Sydney coaching box? I knew about it, but I'd forgotten about it. I did get that sent to me by somebody. And that's an interesting one.

[00:16:20] But I just think this year, I don't know if we as a club have pushed the limits on certain things over the last two or three years under Fitzee that the referees are really clamping down on certain things that we're doing because other clubs are complaining about it.

[00:16:36] But I was looking at the penalty count during the game and it just felt like we were getting hammered on certain things. But the penalty count evened out towards the end. But in critical moments, we just weren't getting the rub of the green.

[00:16:49] So the video referee decisions, we spoke with some people about some of those tries and they were pretty adamant that they thought that the StoneTree one should have been called a try.

[00:16:59] I have to categorically say, I hand on my heart do not think that the video ref made a decision because her partner was in the other opposition box. Like forget it. And we've had people write to us and it's like, come on, let's live in the real world.

[00:17:17] The problem was it was a bad look and they didn't, they say they didn't realize but they did realize like it's been a thing for a couple of years now. Yeah, I thought it was just topical. I'm glad they said no more, but no one got in trouble.

[00:17:30] It's fine. Let we move on. We won the game. There was no funny business. They said this will not happen again. Oh wow. Okay. That's interesting to me.

[00:17:40] I'm not really sad by that because again, I looked at it and just thought if that was the situation where I'm in, that's a really awkward situation. I know, I know. But I do think the right decision was made. Like you can't do that. Agreed. Yeah.

[00:17:53] 100% right. And I think now there's a lot of- Like no one with a clear conscience and even remote intelligence is going to say, oh they're in cahoots or whatever. Like ridiculous. Absolutely.

[00:18:07] I think that's not a good look. And you don't want to put that pressure on them, let alone whoever else. But yeah, interesting times we live in. So yeah, Sharky's win. Second out of three games we've kept the team to six or less.

[00:18:20] I do think we need to kind of concentrate on the positive of that defense because I know South didn't throw a lot at us but they did have consecutive sets at us and we held them out.

[00:18:30] The one try came from a scrum base and just a poor read from our guys. We know that. That can be corrected. It's not the end of the world stuff. You don't want to see it.

[00:18:41] Especially where we're sitting, we could see that their fastest guy was going to loop around the back and he was away.

[00:18:46] That was the one thing that concerned me was the kick return defense because there's a few times where the line wasn't straight, the line wasn't set right and Jigre just absolutely smoked.

[00:18:58] And every time there was a kick and the whole stadium was going like, oh, because you could see that the line wasn't set.

[00:19:06] And then he made his pay right? And he's been targeted all season when he's played first grade right? That was probably his best game that he's played.

[00:19:13] So that one thing you could see in the second half was a real focal point to have a line and you could even see Trindle and guys like that yelling and the Cora to look to their sides to make sure everyone was in a line.

[00:19:23] They did try to address it, but you can assume that this week that's going to be a huge focus for them because Kinney is on fire up at the time.

[00:19:32] And it all stems back to the Dolphins game and I'll make it in the ball running 93 meters of the current try. That's why the whole crowd was on edge when it happened each time against the Rabideauxs. I totally forgot about that.

[00:19:44] That's exactly why. It had nothing to do with Jigre. It was everything to do with the hammer. I think I must have said to our friend Ben Harlem and not you, I must have said if this mob hasn't learnt from that then they're never going to learn.

[00:19:56] And in the second half it got better so let's give Ben a shout out. Ben is from New York City via Southwinder course and he's in town for a bit.

[00:20:06] So he came to the game with us. He'll be popping up at a game or two which is exciting. Ben's an awesome guy. Give him a follow on the socials he's on there. He's a bit of a star himself Benny in American radio.

[00:20:18] He's got a ton of followers. I've known Benny for a few years from the social media world and that. But I looked at his Instagram and he has like 7 or 8,000 followers. He's a D grade celebrity but he's the most D grade celebrity I've ever met. God bless him.

[00:20:33] We were just talking about his job. I know some of the people he's met over the years. And I just pulled someone out of my hat and it was a reason why.

[00:20:40] And I'll talk to him about it. I'll fear why that was but I said oh have you ever interviewed John Bojove? He goes oh and he gets his phone out and he goes this was three weeks ago. It was human John Bojove.

[00:20:50] So shout out to Benny. I know he's listening. Alright let's wrap that Kieran. Let's never talk about this game ever again because it was just very average I thought.

[00:20:59] You know it wasn't diabolical. People telling me it was the worst game ever. It wasn't the worst game ever. It was just very average.

[00:21:06] I had a lot of fun. I thought the vibe actually was pretty good for a DOW game. I thought the vibe at Shark Park was good. What did you think?

[00:21:12] I'm laughing because the guy in front of us said that like three times. This is the worst game I've ever seen in the first half.

[00:21:19] He said it like three times and I couldn't stop laughing because every time he said it the Sharks would find a way to do something silly or give away a penalty.

[00:21:27] And it just made me feel even worse because I'm like this is and I feel like because the expectations right now of the Sharks are so high.

[00:21:36] And we've been at a high standard for a long time that when things are not going our way we're just feeling it a lot more probably because we haven't gone to that next level yet.

[00:21:45] And we've been hovering around the same sort of spot but jeez I'm looking forward to kicking on and getting past this level that we're at.

[00:21:52] Alright let's have a little bit of an ad break right now Kieran. And what that means is I'm going to tell you about our good friends at Dyson Logistics.

[00:22:01] They were born in the Southland Shire but they're based on the Central Coast now but it's a global global company. It's run by the Dyson family. Our good mate Kane is the head honcho up there. Lifelong Sharks fan sees and ticket a hold of the whole works.

[00:22:17] I've had a lot of great times with Kane watching the Sharks and bad times too as well should be pointed out. But if you need any kind of delivery of any kind of product you have small big or large get in touch with Dyson Logistics.

[00:22:31] They are on 0283391844. You can try them at DysonLogistics.com. Just I've used them before they're legit they're great people great service.

[00:22:42] If you or your company needs them tell them we sent you and they'll look after you even more than what they normally would for a regular customer at Dyson Logistics. And that is those guys there. Kieran let's talk a bit of news in Sharkland.

[00:22:57] Did you see any of the NRLW? I did not actually see any of the NRLW. That was the double header on Sunday and I had some things on. I was in the car all Sunday but I did hear of an unfortunate injury.

[00:23:10] Yeah so Jada Taylor has done ACL which really sucks. It happened late in the game and she's gone for the year unfortunately.

[00:23:20] That's heartbreaking because I see her around all the time. She's always in Sharks gear like she just is she'll talk to anyone like I've seen her in the stands like old couples will talk to her.

[00:23:30] She'll sit down she'll stop what she's doing like she just seems like such a good person. Yeah so she works for the club when she's not playing for them. Just an amazing young talent with a big future.

[00:23:41] They're still there but she's going to be missing this year. The Sharks won 18-16 that was sort of back and forth on the score with the Eels. And the Eels are a pretty good team. I thought maybe the Sharks would let it go towards the end.

[00:23:55] They were missing Emma Todogato who didn't play. She's out for another week with an injury but she'll be back I think the week after next. But man they were gritty and they got back into it. It's a pretty good well balanced team.

[00:24:12] Forwards are strong. Everyone sort of does their job and they're only going to get better each week. The injury thing is a bit of an issue because last year they couldn't really keep the spine together.

[00:24:23] This year they've already lost Jada Taylor. Todogato didn't play the second game so it's going to be one of those. I think it's such a short season at the moment, the NRLW, until they get more teams.

[00:24:33] One little hiccup and it can set you back. But the good news is we're undefeated which is awesome. And yeah just a very gutsy performance by the NRLW Sharks. And I think if they show that kind of grit each week they'll be in every game.

[00:24:51] The defence is really good this year for them. They've obviously worked on it pretty hard. Yeah very entertaining game. We play this Saturday I believe. We'll get to that a bit later on.

[00:25:01] But yeah if you get the chance Kieran to watch the replay or the mini at least it's very much worth your time. Well and we've got the double header coming up in a few weeks. That's the nights right? So that's going to be a Sunday afternoon.

[00:25:15] I think that's the only Sunday game the Sharks have got all season so that's going to be a cracking day down there. It could be a triple header.

[00:25:22] It is a triple header. I think the under 20s go first and the little girls go and then it's the NRL after that as well. So yeah the NRLW, I want to see them do well. I want to see them win.

[00:25:34] You saw the Knights girls when they got that win and how much it meant to everyone up there. You just kind of get jealous. You're going to go I wish that was the Sharks.

[00:25:41] Because my daughter is now of the age where she sees it and she goes look that's the Sharky's women playing and singing the song. And now she's like there's a Sharky's girl song too. My daughter is so wrapped about the girls in a black white and blue.

[00:25:53] It's unbelievable and we even saw it before the game I think it was. They had all the junior females playing and they were physical. And I saw one of the kids with a busted nose so hopefully she's alright. But hey it's scary out there.

[00:26:10] Yeah it's as physical as the men's. It's a different kind of physicality but it's as physical as the drama is there. We've made errors in both second halves this year, both games. And they need to clean that up. They weren't outstanding by any means.

[00:26:23] But they showed a lot of heart, a lot of desire to get the job done. They scored last to win. They hung on in the last five minutes. So it was really cool. Really happy to see them be two out of two.

[00:26:33] And there's only nine games. I'm not being like funny or whatever. There's nine games in the regular season so they're already almost a third of the way through the season undefeated. So Canberra this week on Saturday in Canberra.

[00:26:47] I think it's a 12-45 kickoff but you need to check that out for yourselves just in case I'm wrong. Yeah see if there's any more Sharks NRLW games like a standalone picture that are kind of family friendly.

[00:26:59] Because I was trying to look at that to see where I could take my girls down there. But I think it's really the Knights game. I think the other ones are kind of night games.

[00:27:05] There is a standalone Thursday night which we're going to have a bit of a Sharkcast get together which would be fun. You can do your own research Kieran. You've got the internet. You can look that up.

[00:27:16] I think there might be something for the young family to go to. I think it will be that Sunday game. I think that will be my daughter's first Sharks game that she's going to go to.

[00:27:26] And I think having the NRLW before is just going to be such a great sort of experience. If I wasn't travelling on Sunday I would have taken her out there to the Allianz Stadium. Because again it's just a little bit easier with kids than Shark Park.

[00:27:37] But hey we're not RCB and I love Shark Park. We're not RCB and we do love Shark Park. I'll tell you what's fun though at Allianz is the lights and everything. Like your daughter would love the lights and the bells and whistles.

[00:27:48] Yeah and the facilities too. They can actually take you to the bathroom. RCB's right damn. So Jersey Flag doing well finally this year. Like as in finally this part of the season they're coming good.

[00:28:00] They've won I think three in a row now. They're off to Melbourne this week. They absolutely punished, you saw this firsthand, punished the Rabbitos 58-16. So good stuff there for the for and against. It's a team with some future stars.

[00:28:17] I mean Riley Pollard at half from what I've seen of him it's a general statement. But he'll be good to go within two years I reckon in NRL. Like he's just a really good young halfback, classic halfback.

[00:28:28] He can do it all. If he stays fit and healthy, body and mind. He's got a great big future in the game. Dylan Coutts has trained with the Sharks NRL team for a summer or two. Like he's part of the system.

[00:28:42] There is a bunch of guys just looking to make the next step and they've had some big wins. It's up to them now to keep going. But did anyone else stand out for you? I don't know if you had names in front of you or?

[00:28:52] I've just got a team list in front of me now right but Dylan. Dylan Coutts yeah. He looked like a man amongst boys at certain times. Like he was really physical. Every time he got the ball he looked a threat. Michael Gabriel, he went off with an injury.

[00:29:08] But every time he got the ball mate it was again it was like that super talaqa thing. You could just see the South's defence just kind of panicking. The Newtown Sharks Jets had a big win over the Rabbitos 38-16 so they keep winning which is great.

[00:29:22] They played the Bears this week 3 o'clock on Sunday. So that'll be some good fun. Now it was announced that, so I think this week there's a bunch of NRL Hall of Fame stuff happening.

[00:29:38] And one of the people going into the Hall of Fame is related to Cronhalla for a couple of years. That is the legendary Jack Gibson who was the Sharks for three years in the 80s. Didn't quite get us to where we thought we would with the Super Coach.

[00:29:52] But he'll be part of the NRL Hall of Fame. And there is a bit of news around that the Sharkies will be doing something similar later in the year. There's more to come on that.

[00:30:03] But maybe in a month or two there'll be a bit of talk about our own kind of Hall of Fame and recognition of former players which is always a wonderful thing. So stay tuned for info on that. Any signing news happening Kieran that we know of?

[00:30:18] Whoever we signed, Jack Williams? Who else is off? So Jack Williams is off contract. I think Cofusi hasn't officially been announced. I think there was a mutual option with Cofusi that hasn't been touched on. And I don't think the club has officially announced the mutual option on Hadelton.

[00:30:38] So those are, I've seen people say that he's been signed. And again I think if he was off contract it would be more of a story.

[00:30:47] But I think it was one of those things where those guys I think have been maybe done in the background and we're waiting for the right time to kind of say something with those mutual options. Or maybe we don't even announce the mutual options.

[00:30:57] I'm not sure how we roll with those. But I think those are the kind of big ones that are out there. The big one I'd say at the moment is the Royce Hunt situation and if there's anything happening with that.

[00:31:07] But that seems to have gone pretty quiet and South seem to have kind of put their focus into a number of different areas which might suggest they're not confident that they're going to game.

[00:31:16] But I'm not too sure where that one's going to land because obviously Royce is trying to get that long term sort of stability. Yeah. How did you think he went on the weekend?

[00:31:26] I thought it was good. I mean I think Royce is kind of, if you put Royce in the right role Royce can be very successful.

[00:31:32] And I think sometimes we've asked him to play certain roles that don't fit his skill set and he might be exposed in that or might be left out there for too long. I think when you put Royce in the right role, in the right team, he's really impactful.

[00:31:47] And I think you can make an argument that on his day he could definitely potentially be our best front rower. I do think our best two front rowers are Toby and BHU not in that order. But Royce on his day can definitely get there.

[00:32:00] And I think when you look at next year with Fanil Blake coming, the prospect of Hunt and Fanil Blake and the Hamonueli and the Toby as well. And those guys could really work quite well.

[00:32:11] But again, there's only so many dollars you get in a salary cap and we've got potentially other issues that we need to fix within our squad. So I'm obsessed with salary caps.

[00:32:21] I would love to sit down with Daramundi for like an hour or two just to pick his brain and understand how he does it all. But again, we've heard from the club, he plans this stuff five years out in advance. So it's quite interesting to me.

[00:32:32] When I was down at media yesterday, I ran into a young man doing work experience for the club. And that could be an option for you to do. You could work side by side with Mooney. I would love that.

[00:32:46] I would just take notes all day and just watch film and just sit there and listen to how they prospect and how they find players. Because again, you go back a few years ago and I know it was a different regime.

[00:32:54] But when they went out and found Sipa Talakai and Royce Hunt, because they had no money available. Those talents that they identified then have actually carried us through the last couple of seasons.

[00:33:06] Because if you look at the difference between say West Tigers and the Sharks, we nailed some of those decisions.

[00:33:12] And maybe those guys don't go on to become internationals, but they've gone on to become first graders and super players for us and in our system and the value for money that we're getting for them. So I love the business aspect of it.

[00:33:25] That's why I'm so into college football and PlayStation 5 at the moment. Hold that thought. I'm into recruitment. Ironically, both those guys did play internationals though. I know, as soon as I said that I realized they became internationals.

[00:33:36] But again, from where they started to where they ended up, absolutely insane. Okay, so this is how my brain works. I'm going to give you a portion of it because it does so many crazy things that you guys and girls would just be shocked.

[00:33:48] But part of the way my brain works is it doesn't really comprehend time. And when I say time, I'm pretty good in the old watch. I'm talking about general time, time of the year, time of the month, time of the time we're at in the world.

[00:34:03] For example, I've been waiting probably eight years, 10 years to play the next college football game because the last one was that longer. A year ago they announced it was coming out and they gave the date and it was, I'm guessing August 1st. I thought beauty. I can't wait.

[00:34:22] I'll have to update my console, but it'll be worth it. And then I started seeing the trailers and the previews and the reviews. I was like, all right, here we go.

[00:34:33] The mind shuts down a week later, two weeks later, three weeks later, you message me and go, man, I can't stop playing this college football game. And I'm like, what? It's out. That's unbelievable. Is it just incredible? It seems like it's incredible.

[00:34:47] Yeah, so it actually came out on the 15th of last month and I was debating whether I jumped into it because I was like, oh, but the new Madden comes out in August. I've really only got a month window to get into it.

[00:34:58] How much value am I going to get out of it? I live a busy life with a couple of kids, but my curiosity got the better of me and I am having so much fun with it. I am playing it before I start work every day.

[00:35:11] I work from home, so I crack onto it every morning before I start my day and it kind of just gets me going.

[00:35:15] And then I think about it all day while I work and then, you know, lunchtime, I'll play it after the kids get a better play it.

[00:35:22] And now I'm dreading the new Madden coming out because I haven't got to the part where I make my own player because I want to do that. And then I want to draft it into my Madden game.

[00:35:30] I'm basically seeing the next six to seven months of my life evaporate because that's all I'm going to be doing. So is it linked to Madden or not?

[00:35:39] So the old games used to be able to be drafted from that and use the draft classes in the Madden games, right? And I believe that's the case still. But again, I'm only playing one mode at the moment.

[00:35:50] I'm playing dynasty where I'm the coach and I'm doing the whole college program and I'm recruiting athletes and I'm getting players to my school and I'm playing the games each week.

[00:35:58] And then you get a certain amount of points for recruiting every week that you have to allocate to get your players. I've not got one five star athlete. I think I'm coming like 12 in terms of draft classes, but I'm loving it. I'm investing way too much time.

[00:36:12] I'm spending a lot of time watching YouTube tutorials on how to actually do it effectively because I think I wasted like the first six weeks of it, but I'm loving it. It's such a fun game. So do you need to get Madden?

[00:36:24] No, but I bought the bundle together because you can use. Yeah. So you got like a bit of a discount if you buy it because you can't go to JB Hi-Fi and buy the college game. Buy it by a PlayStation store or Xbox store.

[00:36:37] And there was a bundle. There's no physical copies in Australia. I think because there's a bit more niche. So I think you're going to buy it on the online stores. Well, I couldn't find it online anyway, so I just bought it on the online store.

[00:36:48] But yeah, that combination of the two, I think it's going to be quite fun to play the two together. Hopefully the games do link up.

[00:36:54] I do believe in the past against it so long as I played up to a lot of brain cells since then had a couple of kids.

[00:36:58] But I believe you used to be able to take draft classes from the college game and that would enhance your Madden experience because you would remember the players and the stats and all that type of stuff.

[00:37:09] We could talk Madden all day, but we won't do that right now. Let me tell you about the RMYPCH, the Royal Modial Club Import Hacking and their new restaurant, The Galley. It's awesome. They have great food.

[00:37:23] It's for members, for non-members, for anyone in the world that wants to go down. You are more than welcome to go check it out. The Royal Modial Club Import Hacking, long term sponsors of this show. Amazing views, great vibes, friendly to all.

[00:37:41] And the food since these people have taken over in The Galley has gone off the charts. Off the charts, it's amazing. Get in touch with them via their phone number 95239300. They're online which is rmycph.com.au. It's a membership app.

[00:38:02] Tell them we sent you and they will look after you. Great place to watch The Footy. You don't have to go necessarily into The Galley. We recommend you do, but you can go watch Footy. They love having sharks games there and it's just the place to be.

[00:38:17] So thanks to those guys for their support of the show. Kieran, we're going to get through some letters, then we're going to play a new game which is not Random Shark of the Week.

[00:38:27] So if you're listening and you're on the fence about whether you should keep listening and I have no idea why you turn off because this is the world famous shark ass pod.

[00:38:35] Don't turn off because we're going to play a new game and it will make me look even sillier than I normally do. First up we have mail from Jacob. Jacob is from Tamworth. He moved to Coffs Harbour. He's from Tamworth, a great place in the world.

[00:38:53] He moved to Coffs Harbour. He loved watching the boys come up there to play. He'd like to address the criticism that Cronulla are one trick power game that sides through the middle.

[00:39:04] Yes, our forwards can roll on behind our strong backs but when it doesn't go to plan we look like we're stuck trying to find a way to break the grid. I genuinely believe that we have the answer to this already.

[00:39:17] Everyone speaks about how good one of our line runners that are back rowers is in Britain and Teague. What never gets spoken about is how fast they are.

[00:39:26] Nicoraz gassed his opposition on the outside plenty of times this year like Katoa from the Dolphins to set up our last try. When Teague makes a break and his line is fast enough to draw the fullback.

[00:39:37] I think if we play power a little wider when the middle gets slow we can use our fast forwards including Talakai to put bodies on opposing halves. This is great mail. It's evident even when Nico hits short sides that we find value in wider playing forwards.

[00:39:54] Just a thought but I truly believe Nicoraz is one of the fastest back rowers going around. He should be using him as such thanks to the hours of content. Jake, that is genius. Speak, Ciaran.

[00:40:06] Yes, so I think we do see a little bit of that sometimes when you'll see coming out of trouble they'll try and shift it out wide.

[00:40:12] And often you'll see Nicoraz on the wing where he'll get on the outside and then can sometimes get a pass back to a Kennedy or a Ramian or a Katoa. But look, I think our back rowers do have a bit of speed.

[00:40:25] I just think at the moment if we get stuck as a team from a tack perspective I go back to our halves and the disjointed nature that we've had this season. But there is value in our back row. And again our back rowers play 80 minutes every single week.

[00:40:39] And once we throw a Talakai in there as well like you've got potentially three guys that are quite fast and can do it. It can then give you more options in the middle to try and play more of that size if it's not working.

[00:40:51] But just keep rotating those guys. So not the craziest idea I've heard from the mailbag because I've heard some crazy ones. That's not one of them. It's a good way to start actually.

[00:41:01] Paul says, I'd love to hear your opinion on the quality of refereeing and bunker from the game tonight. Sharks Forever Up Up that's from Paul commonly referred to as Jono. Look we thought that there was some interesting refereeing decisions.

[00:41:13] We've spoken about that a bit already with the penalties. We all sort of thought the Stone Street try, the first no try was a try. I did question why Sam was sort of jumping so high and being so dramatic with the way he put the ball down.

[00:41:30] But aside from that I thought it was a try. I don't know if it was going to cost us the game Paul but I don't know what more I can say on that. What do you think Kieran? I think I touched on it a little bit earlier.

[00:41:42] I feel like we've annoyed the referee with certain things that we do and we seem to be copying and taming for certain things. I just don't feel like we're getting a lot of the love at the moment.

[00:41:51] But again that comes down to discipline and if we're getting pulled up on certain things then we just need to address those areas. Because a lot of those ones are the 60 games and the same sort of penalties right. So we've just got to sort those things out.

[00:42:03] The bunker is a at best sometimes 50-50 shot. You've got to make sure that you try and just not go into the bunker. John says a very scratchy win but defence held up. Lots of errors and infringements but the attack was good in part.

[00:42:17] I don't know anyone tackles Talekai is such a powerful player. Trinder was good but there's work to do. Cheers from John. Thanks John appreciate you writing in and agree with all of that. Hope you're good.

[00:42:29] Peter said I never thought we would win a game and I'd still be disappointed yet here we are. Average game at best. We were rubbish but thankfully Souths were a little bit more rubbish. No real standouts for me except maybe Royce and Cam.

[00:42:43] I don't normally have a shot at the ref but what the hell was that? It was like we were reffing under 10, stopping the play all the time, resetting players, falling for Souths, milking and whining. I think the ref was out of his depth.

[00:42:56] He may become a good ref but he's not there yet. Her titans on a short turnaround will be tough especially if Tricky is out up up. Thanks again to the pod. Love it from Sharky Pete. Sharky Pete starting with your finish.

[00:43:10] Thank you for listening to the pod so we appreciate that. I think that there are a few more players aside from Royce and Cam that impressed us which we spoke about in the first segment. But respect what you're saying. You weren't happy with the refs.

[00:43:22] Yeah it's a tough one Kieran this refereeing stuff because I think unless they're super howlers I don't really like to kind of focus on it. It's two teams playing usually the better team. The better team wins.

[00:43:35] I'd certainly will fire up if there's a howler that affects the game. That Canterbury game against the Warriors a month ago like disgraceful. Everyone should have been sacked.

[00:43:46] But in this game I just thought yeah the ref didn't have a good game but I didn't think it really affected anything to be perfectly honest. The one thing I think that got me was kind of like the HIA stuff.

[00:43:56] Like that was a bit of a dicey situation right where Jesse gets whacked. If he doesn't stay down we don't get a penalty and then he stays down and then they make him go for HIA whereas the South player gets whacked but then doesn't go for HIA.

[00:44:12] So like those sort of inconsistencies can kind of cause big changes to a game right and momentum. So those are the things that kind of irk me a little bit more. But that's not referee. That's like the guys up in the stand. It's like the injury bunker right.

[00:44:26] Like it's the medical thing right. So again like that sort of consistency with that stuff I kind of get a little bit more irked at. Like play the ball speed and all that type of stuff like that's hard to judge on the fly.

[00:44:37] And I just think when you're playing like a lower ranked team they're going to do everything they can to try and milk penalties. They're going to try and niggle everything they can because again they can't match it.

[00:44:45] And you look at their halves for example like they didn't have Cody Walker. They didn't have Littrell at the back like they were always going to try and just try and drag us into the mud right. And maybe we fell for it a little bit.

[00:44:56] Jason said I posed the question earlier in the year about who would fill in for our 1, 6, 7 and 9 if they all went down this year. And I remember this question Jason I kind of scoffed and went well let's hope that doesn't happen.

[00:45:10] So now you say so far Beryl is the only player not to miss a game from memory. I know it's not the whole spine but with Tricky possibly out who fills the boots and if Beryl plays in the halves next week does Beryl fill in?

[00:45:24] That's Jason from Geelong, a good part of the world down in Geelong. Spent a good night there a couple years ago. We're going to discuss that stuff in the last segment Jason but just for now to honour your lovely mail. Tricky definitely out as you probably know.

[00:45:40] Kieran you're of the belief that Beryl will not play in the halves, I'll just name him there. I think that's the play. I mean this is what we did versus the Storm and I can't see Cam playing the full game at Hooker.

[00:45:55] Obviously they put Beryl on the bench so that says to me maybe that McKenna does actually play 9 and Beryl plays. I think it's just maybe too many moving parts by moving Braylee into the 7 and then you move McKinnis from 13 into 9.

[00:46:09] I think it's probably a simpler thing if you just do the McKinnis thing again like we did last time and let Atkinson run the show.

[00:46:16] But last time we did it on like 24 hours notice, it was like a captain's run thing and we had to make those quick changes. Whereas this week they've got a full week to prepare for it, a full week to strategise for it.

[00:46:27] So the fact that Beryl's on the bench I think tells me they might go with McKinnis at 9 and Braylee at 7. But also the fact they put Puru in the extended bench and not in the 17 tells me he's not playing.

[00:46:40] Otherwise he's shown that if he's going to name a debutant, he'll name that guy early in the week and he'll show that respect to the guy. So I can't see Puru being called in at the last minute. That's a good point actually, good point.

[00:46:53] Macca wrote in and said, Love the show. I look forward to hearing the premium Sharks content you provide each and every week. Sharkcast is easily the best Sharks podcast out there. So we appreciate that Macca. We try and deliver on what we can to appreciate your support.

[00:47:12] My summary of this season so far is that we're closer than last year but lacking a premium front rower and one more premium spine player. AFB is coming so that takes care of that.

[00:47:26] I too live on Blake Island so happy there and Nico is in the top five halves of the NRL when his confidence is back. So it's the one or six we need to improve. Kennedy is good but not great. Trindle is good but not great.

[00:47:41] Wilton hasn't been the same since coming back. Atkinson has been a good surprise but isn't next level. The Panthers game was a coaching masterclass from Ivan Cleary. We've realised our back five is now a blueprint for beating us.

[00:47:55] It's a shame we had a great start to the year and some big wins over top teams but I fear will not make much of an impact in the finals if we don't change something soon. The win over Souths was needed but we didn't play well.

[00:48:06] I believe in Fitz, I know he can turn it around. High completion rating against the Titans is a must. Top four baby we can do it. Cheers from Macca. So that was just a bunch of things he was talking about.

[00:48:16] I got a bit confused reading out about the spine but he's talking about next year. So amazing points, appreciate your support. That was a masterclass by Ivan Cleary. I don't like giving Panthers much credit in life but they really came to town.

[00:48:33] A game that a lot of people thought Cronulla would win by eight points, two points, six points in a close game beat us 42-0.

[00:48:42] Yeah that was brutal and I was watching a pre-game, I don't know what this was on but I somehow caught recently like last week the Panthers players talking before that game.

[00:48:54] And they were all saying how much they expected it to be a close game. Nathan Cleary was interviewed, I think Luke Gardner as well was interviewed.

[00:49:00] And they were like look we think we might, 28-4 16 they were sort of saying when they were asked for pre-game predictions and their first try scorers and that type of stuff.

[00:49:10] They were expecting a really tight and tough game so I think that shows the respect that Penrith had for the Sharks especially at that time when we were really firing.

[00:49:18] To be fair our season probably hasn't recovered from that high point of beating Melbourne and the Roosters and then getting that spanking from the Panthers. But there's been so many things where we've had Nico out and all those types of situations.

[00:49:32] So I think we've got to get everybody back on the field, everybody's got to be fit, I say this all the time, we've got to get our front rowers fit, our front rowers firing.

[00:49:39] And then judge this team because our front rowers have not been fit and firing together after two years. And that's a huge problem you take out any teams top two front rowers and have them on limited minutes.

[00:49:48] I'm almost of the opinion now we just sort of say we've got to start the two guys, Hamline O'Reilly and Toby and just sort of say guys like now's the time. We've been weaning you off the bench for a little bit.

[00:49:59] You've got to get out there and go right now and see what you've got because I don't know how much longer we can hold on. Spoiler for everyone, that won't be happening for one of the players this week. You didn't notice the team list? Hamline O'Reilly.

[00:50:10] So Hamline O'Reilly's out right? No I did read this right? Is that another, what's going on there? Knee strain of some sort. So not I think season. That's brutal. I guess not good enough to play this week so.

[00:50:24] You can't buy a trick the poor fellow with these injuries the last 18 months. But I read a lot of fact for Hamline O'Reilly out there and you know he's putting in the work. He is desperate to get out there. He loves this club.

[00:50:35] He's desperate to be out there fit and far. Like it's not as if he's cutting corners on his rehab and things like that. Like this guy took less money to stay with us, to prove a point and to try and win with us. I'm really rooted.

[00:50:46] I try not to be critical about people on this show particularly in general like making statements, huge statements. I'm a great person right? I find it hard not to hold back when people talk about injuries.

[00:50:59] And if someone's for example paying out Hamline O'Reilly and it's because of his injuries and not the way he plays, which I've seen. I find that so irresponsible, immature, uneducated, whatever other fancy words you want to throw in. And unnecessary probably more than anything.

[00:51:18] Like you can't bag a player because he can't stay on the field due to an injury. That's just ridiculous. It's just a run I think he's going through too. And he'll come out the other side of this.

[00:51:28] There's been players that have played for our club before that their style of play has been so physical that they get injured all the time.

[00:51:35] And then you kind of question like how much they really love it or how much they want to play for it, all that type of stuff. Because you just look at it and you go well this guy, he's always hurt.

[00:51:44] And you just go what's going on there right? You question is he doing the rehab? Is he doing certain things? You might see him at the pub on a Thursday night. But that's not the case in these sort of situations.

[00:51:54] Where you've got a guy like this who bleeds black, white and blue and loves the club and is just desperate to get out there and be fit for it. These guys are putting in the work. They were cutting corners.

[00:52:05] Shown a lot of glimpses too in the past month when he's been back. Yeah, we need him. I've been saying this for a long time. We can't do anything without him being fully fit and firing for us. So fingers crossed his back should have rather been better.

[00:52:16] Alright, David's been in touch said the game was truly unremarkable. 80 minute joyride without the joy. Eero's disciplined defense were poor. Eero played well. However, the rabbits try he got showed up. Maybe that's why Ronaldo rushes in off his wing. That's an interesting point.

[00:52:35] I think that's a little bit of a stretch David. I like what you did but I don't think that's what happened on the weekend. I've had a dollar for every time. Jesse had a penalty against him. I could buy a new Sharks jersey every year.

[00:52:46] The repeated infringements let the pressure off and put the Sharks on the back foot. They look like they hadn't trained at night. The dew on the ground made the ball slippery and I hope they factor that into their training.

[00:52:58] On a positive note, Atkinson is a great goal kicker. Nico's absence is being felt and they need him back as soon as possible. Another...is it a pun? I'm not sure what the term is.

[00:53:09] Lastly, watching that game was like watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Porsche. A win but... That's David's words, not mine. I think what he said about Nico being felt is absolutely true. There were times where the game was stagnant and not going anywhere.

[00:53:30] You just thought if Nico was out there they would find some points now and get ourselves out of it. That could have been a really good confidence boost for Nico to get him back on track. We need Nico back.

[00:53:40] Hopefully he's back before the end of the season, before the finals. I saw him yesterday training, after training I should say. He was walking around without any crutch or anything and he wasn't really limping. I said to him, you're looking pretty good there.

[00:53:57] He said, yeah, it's going well. He looked like a guy that might be back before the finals. I don't want to throw that out too strong. He looked way better than what I thought he would since the last time I saw him.

[00:54:09] I also told him I'd give a plug on the show for his new book. He's got a kids book coming out. It's, I believe, a kids book that he's done with his friend. I think it's Marley and someone else has illustrated it. It looks really good.

[00:54:27] If you have young people in your life, there's a bit of a message in there. We encourage you to support Nico because we love the King of Karingba. But I think he could be back before, man.

[00:54:37] I don't know if you'd rush him in, if you'd throw him in. But what you were saying about everyone being fit towards the end of the year, I think he's going to be ready to go, which I didn't think a day or two after the injury. Yeah.

[00:54:52] I remember when the injury happened and your concerns about things and it would sound very grim. All the reports that came out of Shark Park for that day were quite scary. So being able to get back this season and before the finals,

[00:55:06] especially to have a game or two under his belt would be huge. That last game versus Manley Brookey could potentially be a real blockbuster given where Manley's sitting in the top eight and the teams below them and around them with the Dragons and all that type of stuff.

[00:55:20] So that could be a real pressure game for us. So hopefully Nico is back for that. I'd love him to be back the week before so he gets two weeks before the finals. But yeah, I'll take anything I can get.

[00:55:30] I think the Manley game is it could be one of those meaningless games as well, depending on where we fall or where they fall. You just don't know until you get there. Potentially, yeah. The whole ladder this year is so all over the place, right?

[00:55:42] And like the Dragons versus the Bulldogs this week on Saturday night is an absolute blockbuster. Do you think that either of those teams could really make a huge play against the top three teams and they can't?

[00:55:52] Probably not, but we're probably in that mix as well at the moment. So we've got to show something too to try and get ourselves up with the storms and panthers of the world. Okay, now Chad wrote to us and I got to meet Chad on the weekend.

[00:56:04] He came up to us at the game at half time and said hello, which was awesome. He said finally great to catch up with you and also meet the wonderful Gary Dover.

[00:56:15] I appreciate you giving me a few minutes to say hello considering you don't know me at all. Dude, it's my pleasure to meet you so that's not a problem.

[00:56:23] I said to you the first half of the game was terrible, but good to see we're able to go on and get the two points. Tricky in doubt and with our poor form it's going to be tough against the Titans.

[00:56:35] I don't see how we're going to win this one. It's going to be a hard slog, holding the ball, making our tackles go a long way towards us winning. We were not great on Saturday night. Thanks again for all you do with the podcast.

[00:56:47] Looking forward to listening this week. That's from Chad or as he calls himself, Chad Shark. And Chad was cool dude. He's in the upper E.T. and he's got really good seats. Remember where we sat for the roosters final?

[00:57:01] I think that's where Chad sits, if you can visualize that. So it's like yeah the top row of the E.T. is right under the commentators box. Yeah, that's awesome. Sorry I didn't say hello to you Chad. I must have missed you.

[00:57:14] Yeah, make it to meet Gary Dover so that's Shark royalty right there. That's way better than meeting me. That's your words not mine. All right Chad, thank you so much again. Now just crossing over to this place.

[00:57:27] Sean says Sione Katoa is a strong contender for player of the season at the moment for the Sharks. What do you think? I love it. Katoa Island has another resident. So welcome with me Sean. Katoa gives every single week.

[00:57:43] He's so underappreciated at this club and he's finishing is unbelievable. We touched on the defense stats earlier in this episode. He's such an underrated player and for the value for money, for what we're probably paying him versus the output that we get.

[00:57:57] I love Katoa and I hope he stays with us his whole career. So Brad also wrote and he said every time you interview Sione it boils me away how respectful and quiet he is. I hope he stays a Shark for life.

[00:58:08] He's the type of man I want ripping our club. That's from Brad. And yeah we agree like he's just a sweet dude and a really good player. Like a player you can rely on and I don't know if he gets enough credit.

[00:58:22] You know I probably said the same thing about and I'm just saying this because they're strong wingers. So Syafeki now that's good comparison at the time he felt underappreciated a bit. He won a premiership for us. He was with us for a long time.

[00:58:40] Scored a lot of tries. I think there is a bit of a bit of a synergy there between two guys. Yeah I think Feki in history might not be remembered as good as he actually was. And Katoa is probably the same. I think stylistically they're a bit different.

[00:58:56] Feki was more power. Katoa is more speed and the finishing like if you saw Feki coming at you from three meters out. Feki is running over top of you. Whereas Katoa is diving right.

[00:59:08] But I think in terms of that place in Shark history and fond random wingers that you know 20 years time we look back on.

[00:59:15] Both those guys deserve a ton of respect because Feki was yeah he was very underrated for us when you actually look back at his body of work. And even in that grand final mate he was he was very good for us.

[00:59:26] And similar jobs in getting us out of our own yard as well which they both do really great. Yeah which is I think it's even crazier for Katoa because Katoa doesn't feel as big as Feki was and Feki was so physical but Katoa is just as physical.

[00:59:41] All right Josh has written to us and he said I don't think I've been quite as frustrated after a win as I was on Saturday night. A definite bank of two points and move on kind of night.

[00:59:51] I'm excited to see what Stone Street could bring over next month. I don't like to get too negative especially after a win but we are very unserious football side at the moment.

[01:00:00] I would doubt there's a team in the league that would see our name as the next team to play and think this is going to be a tough match. This is what we've been doing for the past two months.

[01:00:11] Every team would know if they were to complete high and kick well Cronulla will give them enough chances to most likely win the game. He's making some good points Josh in that we really need to pick up those errors. If we complete high Kieran we can beat anyone.

[01:00:27] He says I hope they can turn it around get back to the footy of the first third of the season get some airs and go into the finals. I'll be there at Sebus cheering the boys on. That's pretty exciting Josh.

[01:00:39] He was also at Magic Round and he says I walked away from that game against the Roosters legitimately thinking we could be a Premiership threat.

[01:00:48] So Josh is using you know he's using his knowledge his experience his emotions and that's the answer he's come up with that at the moment it's not clicking. I don't mind that and he hasn't given up hope as well which is great.

[01:01:01] I appreciate you being in touch Josh enjoy Sebus for us man. I mean Kieran you and I almost got there this year. I'm kind of glad I'm not going to say we didn't get there because we'd probably win it would be amazing.

[01:01:13] But this is the game where you were like let's go there and I was like no let's go to Melbourne and ahhhh. Life gets in the way. I know. Life gets in the way but we will get to a game next year outside of Shark Park. Maybe Vegas.

[01:01:31] I'm still not putting a line through it. All of our listeners who are going are looking forward to potentially seeing you there. And Ben is going to host a massive party for everybody and pay for everybody's drinks.

[01:01:42] He doesn't know it yet but God bless you Ben thank you for that. Ben is also going to help organise some SharkCast live shows so we're planning stuff. Now Brent has been in touch. He said a win at least but still not satisfied with that type of effort.

[01:01:57] It's going to be hard backing it up against the Titans with injuries that we're having. He asked why don't you bring in Puru instead of one of the other guys playing in the halves. He said he's been killing it at the Jets and they haven't.

[01:02:14] He and Atkinson have a combination which is actually a pretty good point Brent. They do have a combination. He's been killing it at the Jets. I think he's been solid. I don't know if he's been killing it from what I've seen. I've seen a lot of it.

[01:02:28] That's from Brent. What else does he say? We must get the win but I think we're going to go 0-2 to the Titans this year. They need 100% improvement on the last game and stop the dumb errors. Please let's get the win. That's from Brent.

[01:02:44] So I'm not ready to see Puru just yet in first grade Kirin unless it's absolutely necessary. I think he was in the first grade with Ison the other week. It was kind of necessary so we threw him in and he did fine.

[01:02:56] So I think if you threw in Puru, I don't think he'd let you down. He's a very competitive player but I just don't think for his future it's wise to throw him in now. I'm pretty sure we've signed him for the next year or two.

[01:03:12] If they haven't they're going to. I heard somewhere from someone that was in motion and maybe it just wasn't announced. I'm not sure but I think it's on the cards he's going to stick around if he hasn't already committed.

[01:03:27] So they don't mind him as a long-term option but he's obviously just not ready. I understand Brent wanted to see him but it's not going to happen this week my man.

[01:03:36] No, I just mean I think if you look at our team I'm sure you'll get to this later. You've got Kendi, Katoa, Ramian, Iroh, Stone Street, Atkinson. That's your sort of other back six in the back line.

[01:03:49] To throw another guy that's making his debut in there you really lied on experience. Right or wrong about Braylee playing at seven, at least you've got a guy that's played 100 NRL first grade games. And you've got some stability, you've got Cam McInnes there.

[01:04:03] You're kind of balancing it out right? By throwing in another first gamer in there with Atkinson who's played a handful of games, Stone Street on his third game, Iroh has played like 15 games at this point. You're really inexperienced against the Titans.

[01:04:15] It doesn't matter who you're playing against in the NRL. I think you've got to have some sort of level of experience in your team.

[01:04:20] And I don't think it's fair to Puru to throw him into a situation like that and then kind of judge him on that because you're not really setting him up for success.

[01:04:26] And we talked post game with Gary and myself about how the team was kind of lacking a bit of leadership in someone standing up and going, hey I'm your guy, follow me. Particularly in the spine. We know Sifir does it, we know McInnes does it.

[01:04:43] I think he's thrown Puru as well. Now again, he's a competitive kind of guy. He's not necessarily a quiet player. But it's a lot for him to guide the entire team around and be the guy that says, hey follow me in his first game.

[01:04:57] So I think that it's just not his time right now. It doesn't mean it won't come. It could come as soon as this year. We're not sure. But at the moment there's other options. So it's not a slide on the kid. It's just not his time.

[01:05:12] There's too many injuries. Yes. Steve's been in touch. We got the win which was good. But it's still concerning. We struggled to get to 20 points. The team needs to get better. The Titans could potentially put a big score on us. I'm not confident at all, especially losing Trindle.

[01:05:34] We're missing Nico, missing Ronnie. He's worried about tall Tom coming back, which he has been named in the 17. Just because he's been dominated a bit lately in Steve's opinion. So he's asking who else is there to throw in.

[01:05:52] I think Steve and a couple of these guys and girls are really into this kind of lower grade spotlight. Because he's talking about giving Sam Healy a chance at some point. And Sam Healy is awesome, but I don't think he's ready for first grade yet.

[01:06:07] So that's from Steve. You just need to have that mix of experience. It's one of those things, right? We saw it with Stone Street for example. Killing it in lower grades, killing it for a few years. But he's only two games in.

[01:06:23] And if you have a bunch of these guys playing one, two, three, four, five, six games in their career. And you've got a guy like Kieran Foran on the other end. Kieran Foran cooked us earlier in the year. He's got hundreds of games of experience.

[01:06:33] I think that's going to be the concern with bringing more of these young guys in. So that's a tough spot. Alright, now I'm on the Instagram. And I think I've missed a few over the week or so. So just bear with us here.

[01:06:49] Jake said the other week Toby had a good game. It looked a lot better. But he thought that Hazelton had a pretty bad game. So his last game before when he got injured. I didn't think it was that bad.

[01:07:04] But Jake's calling it out and a few other people have called it out. Do you think that he just needed a week off? What do you think about Tolton? I think he had a couple of injuries in that game.

[01:07:13] And I think there was a few times where he was kind of limping and he had a couple of different bangs. But again, I don't think Hazelton was ready at this point to have the workload that he's had over this season. It's a long NRL season.

[01:07:27] He's playing in a physical spot. He's a huge human and he gets targeted by their other big players. A freshen up I think is going to be good for him. There's an NRL player in there.

[01:07:36] I just don't think he's at that point of his career where he should be playing those long minutes and starting those games. Because you're kind of throwing him to the wolves in some of those aspects. So limited minutes, get him out there. Get those huge impact players.

[01:07:50] Get those crash balls going again and we'll see the best from Hazelton. Okay now I believe another Steve has written to us. He's got a question for you my friend. He said when is the next running race Kieran is doing?

[01:08:03] Well I considered signing up to do, I think it's like Curl Curl or DY to Newport. It's like 14k. So I was going to do the Southern Surf but I've just got too much going on at the moment.

[01:08:17] I'm going to be up the Central Coast this weekend so not going to be able to make that one. But Southern Surf next year we should get a Sharkcast crew together and run it as a team. No, no, no. Or we can catch you at Nordys after.

[01:08:31] Sounds good. So a reply to Steve on a few things including what you've written to me which is awesome. So let me get back to you on those things. I apologize for my lack of doing so. Our friend Lewis who we met at Shark… No sorry.

[01:08:51] Our friend Lewis who we met at the Hairy Man Brewing Company with his dad Mark the other week. Remember that? Yep absolutely, got the coolest Sharks jacket, a Super League Sharks jacket.

[01:09:01] If anyone's got one of those ones with the Nike tick on the back, holler at your boy. Lewis got in touch and said, and I think he missed this when you're in the Lou Kieran so we'll get to this.

[01:09:13] He said the ads cutting in on the instant replay on the big screen at Shark Park after a try or try attempt need to stop.

[01:09:21] Did you hear the crowd blow up after the Stone Street try when they played the ad a second before the put down which everyone wanted to see? The screens are already smaller than the average NRL ground.

[01:09:32] Let the people see the replay. It's hard enough trying to get people to the game. Yours in Shark Lewis. It's a great point because was it the no try Stone Street one? Was it that one?

[01:09:42] No, it was the one that he scored and then I got up to go to the toilet. Because I saw he scored right and so I got up to go to the toilet and thought how good is this?

[01:09:53] He scored, I'll pay my chance now while they get ready for the gold key. And then I can't see the screen because we don't have screens in the bathrooms. But the whole crowd just starts groaning and going, oh, so I'm just going in the bathroom.

[01:10:03] Oh my God, I've missed this. He hasn't scored what's happened. So I raced out of the toilets, didn't wash my hands, didn't do my zipper up, you know, in all sorts. I've just made that up. Of course, I literally holding hands.

[01:10:15] I walked in there and it's like, no, everything was fine. So to that point, I completely agree with you. Like you're killing it for the fans that they need to do those things. But also as a family, you're watching it in the stands.

[01:10:26] You want to see and what gets me too is with the video referees and things like that or those 50-50 calls, we don't see it in the crowd. So you're going, what actually happened then?

[01:10:35] I can't confirm this, but I think occasionally they will not show something if it will. I hate to use this word, incite the crowd. If it's something kind of serious like a bad send off or something missed. Yeah, I think they kind of go, let's not show that.

[01:10:53] In this case, what happened was Stone Street was putting the ball down and hanging upside down in the air. And when the ball was going down in slow motion, they went to an ad. Oh, that's a brutal ad.

[01:11:05] And I understand the commercialism attached to it, but I actually don't think it was necessarily on purpose. Although I did speak to our friend, the American Ben Harlem. And he said, no, no, someone's doing that with their button.

[01:11:21] So I'm sure they would have got a lot of feedback about it. I'm sure. Oh, it was killing me because when I was dead set in a panic when I heard that crowd roan because that's just not fair to do to people.

[01:11:33] You need to wash your hands, dude. Hey, my hands are the cleanest in the Shire. We should do a test, a bacteria test at Shark Park when everybody scans their teeth. Mine are pretty good. I reckon yours are OK. I think mine are OK.

[01:11:48] I reckon there's a lot of people out there that would be quite questionable, but I'm not going to name names. But Subur Dand, does he listen to the show? He does. I don't think he's got a problem with... He definitely doesn't wash his hands.

[01:11:57] I think he might. I think he might. He might be a hand washer. Terry does not wash his hands. Look, I'm going to say he does. I'm going to say he does. I'm going to stick up for him. They cop enough stuff, those guys.

[01:12:09] Now Brad says, I'm convinced that Fitzy does not know how to use a bench efficiently. He also thinks that Niccora has been very quiet lately. What are your thoughts on those two things, Kieran? I think Niccora suffers a little bit when Nico's not there.

[01:12:26] And I think Niccora does so much work for us in defence that he can sometimes overshadow his attack if we're not giving him some of those opportunities. I think Niccora is one of our better players.

[01:12:35] I think he's so consistent for us that his worst game is not very far away from his best game. And you're not going to get too many howlers from Niccora.

[01:12:44] I can't really remember one off the top of my head where I kind of walked out and said, wow, Britain didn't deliver for us today. He's always one of those guys that if he's not one of our best players, he's very solid.

[01:12:55] So I don't know if I agree with that. But yeah, I think, yeah, it's what's one of the situations. I forgot the first part of that question. What was it? The bench situation, the bench rotation. Oh, the bench situation.

[01:13:08] There's been a few situations this year with like HIAs and injuries that have kind of gotten away, I think, of the plan of the rotation. If we've got that 17, I think it goes back to that. There's obviously a plan B, a plan C, and a plan D.

[01:13:21] I just think we need to get the right players on the field, get everybody fit, everybody in their roles. And then we should see a better use of the bench because right now we've got guys like Royce Hunt starting one week.

[01:13:30] The next week he's, you know, he's been developed to do like that 20 minute burst off the bench. So I think that's kind of playing into things. But if we're going to get everybody fit and firing, I think we can fix some of those issues.

[01:13:41] All right. Our friend Smitty was down at the ground, which I think I forgot about. He said a good try to trindle very cold in the shark tank. We got the points. We need to stay in top four.

[01:13:52] So Smitty and his potential family or mates, I'm not sure who he was with, was in the shark tank, which is where your brother hangs out. Is that right? Yeah, that's behind the golf course. The shark tank is what we call it. The shark tank.

[01:14:04] Yeah, I haven't heard that term before. Oh, it's a term. It reminds me of the glory days. It's a term. There's a whole crew. They love their shark tank. It's quite feral down there. It looks really fun. We should maybe do a live stream from there one day.

[01:14:18] That would be an experience. Now, I just, I mean, I knew about this situation on Instagram where you've got like messages that don't go straight to you. I've got like cold message requests, but I clearly haven't been monitoring them.

[01:14:33] So here's some which are, you know, a month old. Peter says, love shark cast. Our nine definitely needs to be interchanged. He's played pretty much 80 minutes every game for the past four years.

[01:14:48] He'd be so much more valuable in attack and defense if we had a 14 such as Beryl, Healy or Atkinson to sub him. He never kicks, rarely gets tackled and can't change momentum on his own.

[01:15:00] A dummy half in a change would do him and the sharks a world of good. So that's from Peter. First of all, Peter completely apologized that it's now a month old that that message. But I don't mind what you're saying.

[01:15:13] I think that the fact that as you point out, he's played pretty much every game for years. It's going to catch up with you at some point in the season and maybe he would be a different player.

[01:15:25] I won't know until I see it, but I don't mind the idea. But this week we might see something a bit different with him, Peter. So stay tuned on that. Appreciate the support and again, apologies on the delay.

[01:15:37] Now this one is from, I'm not sure who the person is, but their account is called Gorilla, which is awesome. Love listening to the podcast while I'm walking around work. Do you think we would have had a more successful season if we got AFB this year?

[01:15:55] What a great question from Gorilla180. Thank you so much for writing and sorry about the late response. Hopefully you're listening. That's a killer question. What do you think is the answer there, Kieran? I was debating this online with a few people this week.

[01:16:08] I think Faneil Blake has potential to be one of our most impactful signings in the club's history because he gives us every single thing that we are crying out for and everything that I think that we need.

[01:16:21] I think the sooner he gets here, the better. He can't get here quick enough. I am desperate to see him in a shark's jersey. He's, in my opinion, the most important signing I think that we've made since Wade Graham. So your answer is yes?

[01:16:36] Absolutely, yes. I would love to have him here. I would make those moves of the uncomfortable roster decisions and move on some certain players to free up the space to get in yesterday.

[01:16:48] And I agree with you. I think that our season would have been better with him there. I think there's no negatives in performance-wise bringing in one of the best props in the game.

[01:16:58] And he certainly provides something that we're not quite getting, which is that regular mongrel week in, week out. I did ask, I'm not going to name him because I don't want this to become a headline,

[01:17:08] but I did ask someone who used to play for the club who commentates for Fox Sports. Off-record, just having a convo in the kitchen. I said would there be any kind of weirdness bringing in a guy like that who's so kind of in your grill

[01:17:22] to a team who at the time was flying high coming first? And he said it's kind of the only thing that's stopping me from bringing him over right now would be

[01:17:31] the chance that maybe the dressing room would be kind of put out by him just walking into a top team season at the time. Any thoughts on that? So I think I sent you a clip from Jaz Tavanga talking about Fenil Blake

[01:17:49] and how he's kind of like the one person that nobody in the game messes with and how he was in a forward battle. And I can't remember the forward he was in a battle with, but effectively no one apparently talks back to Fenil Blake on the field.

[01:18:02] This person said something and Fenil Blake made it very clear that he was more than willing to step outside into the carpark and sort this out with his person very quickly and he said that person just backed right down.

[01:18:13] So look, I can see that confrontation could be that, but everything I've seen from Fenil Blake at the Warriors, it shows me how much they love him and how much they respect him. I think he would demand that respect at the club.

[01:18:24] I think Fitz has also got that leadership style where he would sort of say, like these are your strengths AFB, this is what we would think you bring. He's also got that family connection with Talakai.

[01:18:34] He's got that connection with Fafida through the Tonga camp and Fafida is all throughout that club. He's always in the sheds. So I think he'd be welcome with open arms. I don't think he'd rock the boat too much.

[01:18:44] What I think might rock the boat is having to say goodbye to somebody who is so loved, like maybe a Royce Hunt or Jack Williams, something like that, because those guys have been integral members of this club for a long time now.

[01:18:54] And they're super well liked and well loved and respected at the club. So from that standpoint, I totally get it. But is the juice worth the squeeze? I'd probably say yes. Yeah. Okay. Thanks again for writing in. Now, Jacob has written in, he said,

[01:19:10] I'm currently in Europe, rely heavily on ABC Redhead listening to the footy. I want to give my opinion with Nick O'Hines being out. I think it's good for us. It feels like a team has been nursing him and pushing him to play and he's pushing himself to play.

[01:19:24] And as we've seen, he was far from his best. A break will be good for him. Let the young and fit cover him until he is ready. So Jacob's looking at a positive. He obviously is not wishing it,

[01:19:36] but he thinks the time off will be beneficial to both Nick O'Hines and the team. At the moment, I would say we're more missing him than not. I do think we probably win a few games that we've lost. Completely see what you're saying, Jacob.

[01:19:48] I wasn't of the opinion that he needed a rest mentally, but that was just one opinion. And I personally can't wait for him to come back. I just think that he brings a drive and a commitment and a stability that we're lacking at the moment.

[01:20:06] I think he also brings a confidence to the players around him, right? So you can say what you want about how other people from outside the club may view Nick O'Hines when everyone seems to have their opinion on him. But within those four walls, they love that guy

[01:20:20] and to a man, they will say how much they love and respect him. So I think getting him out there is going to be really good. I think an interesting thing is Nathan Cleary at the Panthers has missed a lot of football during the last couple of seasons,

[01:20:33] but he's been able to get himself fit for the back end of the season and then really be fresh. So potentially there is an upside to that where Nick O'Hines comes back and he's fresh and he's firing and he's good to go. But yeah, fingers crossed that happens.

[01:20:45] Yeah, I think that's what they need to do. They need to somehow finish in top four, like when the majority of games finish top four, which is still realistic. And then he's back. Hopefully, I mean, well, he's fit.

[01:20:56] Majority of teams fit, maybe Trindle's fit and we can roll on. I'm not a fan of it's a new competition, so I don't want to say that. I don't believe it's a new competition, but at least it'll be a refreshed team

[01:21:10] with a team that's barely played all year. I think that's the positive. Yeah, and my one ask or my one dream with that is to have a game or two together, ideally two before the finals with Ronaldo's back and Hamla Nueli's back and Nico's back.

[01:21:25] And these players that walk into our 17 are back. So they got a bit of match fitness about them. Because if we do finish top four, and I think the expectation is without draw that we've got, we should finish top four.

[01:21:38] You're going to have to put everything into that first week of the finals to just hope for that week off and try and shake the comp up. It's going to be super tough whoever you get with that,

[01:21:45] but you have to front load all the efforts to try and get that win. Alright, so this is our last ad break. It's for our good friend Jason Hawes of Crips and Grips Real Estate. He's been in the biz for over 22 years in the Shire,

[01:22:00] lifelong Sharks fan, season ticket holder, I believe sponsor at some time of the Sharks as well. He is a supporter of Shark Cards Pod. He's a great man. If you have any questions about real estate, you as well, Kieran can get involved with real estate,

[01:22:15] buying, renting, any kind of question at all, please give him a call on 0410-417-450 and just tell him that we sent you and he will look after you. He's a good honest man. I would not read this out

[01:22:32] if I didn't know that to be true, damn it! Jason Hawes, Crips and Grips Real Estate. Let's do the preview and then we'll play the game at the end. We'll make people really work to hear me sound unintelligent

[01:22:47] about the one thing I know about, which is the Cronos, I've won Sharks. So we have a game on Friday at 6 o'clock, one of the dreaded 6 o'clock games, and it is going to be against the Gold Coast Titans who are in terrific form.

[01:23:05] They've won a bunch of games recently by big margins. I'm particularly concerned about this game. I was before Trindle was out, now he's out, I'm more concerned. And that lies in the fact that we're going to have to score some points to win.

[01:23:22] I don't think we can win this one on 14-8. I don't think it's going to be a grinding game. I think that they're going to just throw the ball around, it's what they do, and we're going to need to defend well,

[01:23:32] but also I think no matter how well you defend against the Titans, I feel like you're going to have to score 22 points at least to win the game, if not a whole bunch more. Let me tell you a bit about the Titans right now.

[01:23:44] They're coming 11th, they're still not out of the finals contention. They defeated Brisbane last week 46-18 in unbelievable fashion. They were trailing, so the other thing about this team, Kirin, is they trail and they come back, and then they put on like 30 points, it's unbelievable.

[01:24:00] So they've won five of the past six. In the past six they're averaging over 30 points a game. At home they won four of the past five. They've outscored their opponents by almost 100 points in total in the past three home games. Defensively, they've kept their opposition scoreless

[01:24:17] in the past two second halves, killing it on both sides of the field. Now it's only short-term form, but you're only as good as your last few games, and they're legitimately up there with Roosters and Storm and Penrith as far as all the categories go.

[01:24:32] Now I'm not saying they're in that same wavelength, but they're at least statistically and form-wise on the same par, which is I think pretty scary. So that's them, and we know about us. Let's tell you about the teams. We did lose to them in round 18,

[01:24:46] Kirin as you remember at Coffs Harbour, 20 points to 16, a very winnable game. We fluffed it unfortunately. We've got a chance to redeem ourselves this Friday night. So for the Mighty Sharks, we are as per last week in the back line, Stone Street keeps his place,

[01:25:01] but Trindle is completely ruled out. Lead to believe he'll be back for the Knights game. We'll wait and see on it. They've named Blake Braley at halfback. Cam McInnes is named at hooker. Jack Williams has been named to lock the scrum.

[01:25:16] And so your immediate bench is Jaden Beryl, Sifatallakei, Toby Rudolph, and tall Tom Hazelton. Extended bench of Nephi Peru, Tukuha Tupua, Billy Burns, Maureen Haroddy and Liam Isen. That's the team named. Now for the other mob, they're in really good form. The back line is Keanu Kinney,

[01:25:37] who is this young fullback who's just taken the world by storm. He's keeping AJ Brimson out of his position. Now Khan Perera is breaking records in the wing, and our man Sione is going to be marking him. But he did something on the weekend.

[01:25:49] He scored I think his 40th NRL try in a short amount of time. It's the quickest to reach that milestone of 40, whatever that milestone means, in like 60 years or something. Like he's in really good form. The centers are Brian Kelly and Philip Sammy.

[01:26:06] Now they're, I'm not going to say they're underrated Kieran, but they're probably better than what people may give them credit for. Like I did a deep dive on the Titan stats. Brian Kelly, good or bad, is involved in everything. Everywhere I looked was Brian Kelly. Good or bad.

[01:26:23] Philip Sammy's not too bad either. Jojo Fafida can catch a ball from a bomb. He's decent Jojo. Their halves are in great form. So our man Jaden Campbell, he's found his feet at 5'8". Kieran Foran has some sort of youth energy pill that he's taking.

[01:26:40] I've always been a huge fan. And he's in great form. Like he's assisting tries, line breaks, he's killing it. Their forward pack is origin rep Foddu Eka, who is very, very good. Sam Burrows at Hooker, competent. Aaron Clark at Prop, tough. David Fafida, second row.

[01:26:58] Can do nothing, can be the greatest player in the game. Haas, second row. Chris Randall, both competent players. The bench of Isaac Liu, former Newtown Jett, Jamin Jolliffe. Paulu, who's pretty good, young Prop. And Palasi as well. So competent bench, AJ Brimstone's 18th man.

[01:27:17] Now I've wrapped this team just going through that list, but they're going pretty good. I watch Foddy pretty closely. They're going pretty good. Hasla to kind of work his thing. I don't know, I feel like I've been talking for an hour about the Titans. I apologise.

[01:27:34] What are your initial thoughts, Kieran, on this team and the matchup? I feel like they've got a lot of unstructured players like Campbell and Kinney that have speed to burn and foreign who can direct around the park with barrels who will really straighten up their attack as well.

[01:27:47] So they've got a lot of threats that can really go at us. It's crazy because this team is not too different to the team that played us a few weeks ago when we really expected to win that game.

[01:27:56] Whereas we go into this one and we're kind of a bit nervous. Obviously, we're a bit more down on troops than where we were before. But it feels like Dez has kind of got a bit of a science project up there, the Titans.

[01:28:08] And I think he's probably spent the first few months of this season working out where those puzzle pieces fit by guys like Campbell. Where does he best play? What does he do with Brimstone? They just resigned Brimstone on a big deal. So they obviously really love Brimstone,

[01:28:21] but his 18th man, which is pretty crazy, considering giving a guy like that that sort of contract and then not even him making him a 17. So a lot of attacking threats, I think they've got a lot of points in them.

[01:28:34] It's going to be a huge test defensive for us. Our kicking game is going to be so important in this game because foreign last time we played them absolutely kicked us to death and peppered our back three. So it's going to be a good test for Stone Street.

[01:28:46] It's going to be a good test for the whole team. But look, I think they should be able to get the job done. Our expectations for this team are pretty high. But yeah, this Titans team has got points in them and that's what scares me.

[01:28:56] I'm not conceding. I'm not rolling over. I'm not saying we're not going to win. I think it's going to be different to that Melbourne game because Melbourne when they need to, they just do the rest of the grind. They know how to do it. They can score 50 points,

[01:29:10] but their aim is to beat you by two every time. The Titans can go a few different ways. Now they have been really good for the five out of six games. I think the only loss was maybe to Manly There was one loss in there.

[01:29:20] As good as they're going, I've wrapped them pretty hard. I do think that when you look at the season as a whole, they're not jumping out of you. It's the last five or six weeks they've found form. Now that's important. Don't get me wrong. It's important.

[01:29:35] But there's obviously something there also that can go wrong for them. And I'm hoping it happens this week. I hope we find a way to out wrestle them, out grind them, whatever it takes to slow this team down. I think the coaching staff will be all over it.

[01:29:46] I think they're going to have a plan. I just don't know quite what the plan is. The plan, like as I said, you're going to have to score points, but also if you defend well, you're not going to have to score as many points,

[01:29:58] but defending well against the Titans recently has been pretty hard. Plus their defense has improved as much as the attackers improved. So it's going to be interesting. The other thing is they have the best completion rate and therefore the fewest errors. Right? That's surprising.

[01:30:16] They're going to be at minimum 85%. Minimum. If you go 90%, beautiful. And that's a challenge for this team currently. I don't know why, I don't know how. It just is. But if we can do that, then you have every chance to beat this team.

[01:30:32] But they're going to be around that 85, 90%. They're going to be there. That's what they do even when they've been losing. They've been just really good at that stuff. The coach is going to have to drill it into them. The ball is your friend.

[01:30:44] Again, like I've said in the past weeks, once you're in the other half, go for it, do what you like. But I think they're really going to have to respect that ball. And I don't know if a Melbourne style sort of game is going to do it.

[01:30:57] Like I don't know if a 2016 grand final, and I say that, it's a stupid thing to say, but I don't know if that kind of stat pack is going to work as well against this version of the Titans.

[01:31:07] But I kind of think it's the way you have to go. I almost think you need to back your defense. I think these Titans, to me when I watch them play, it just feels kind of chaotic, and that is why it's a bit strange to me

[01:31:19] the fact that their completions are so high. I think it comes back down to how much speed they have. And when I think about that, I go back to the kick returns and the defensive lines on the kick chases, because a guy like Kinney

[01:31:32] and their wingers especially, and Campbell, they love broken field play, right? So we're just going to be super conscious and not give them a single chance and just try and frustrate them out of the game. But again, the kicking game for the Sharks

[01:31:44] is going to be super important because they're going to be able to keep the Titans in the right position. And their forward pack is a decent forward pack too, right? So again, I think one thing that concerns me about this game is that they've got a veteran

[01:31:58] in the halves like that. And I think that could be the difference if we let it be the difference. So again, the Sharks are going to play their style of football, their game, and not let foreign dictate the terms of their game.

[01:32:10] And I think that we need a player to step up against Melbourne. It was Atkinson. They're going to make a fuss about that, of course as they should. Extra motivation. So we'll see what happens on Friday night. The remaining draw, Kieran, is Titans this Friday, Sunday week,

[01:32:29] Shark Park against Newcastle, Sunday the 25th in Wollongong for a derby, Saturday 31st home against the Warriors. So Shark Park home, finish at Brookey. So it's not the worst of times, but none of those games are guaranteed. If I'm going to guarantee you one,

[01:32:49] it'll be the Knights game. That's just where my head's at. The Knights are all kind of all over the shop. They're at sixes and sevens at the moment, but the Dragons are in good form. They're fighting for a top eight spot.

[01:33:01] The Warriors, again, it's going to be Sean Johnson's second last game against his former club, right? So Johnson's going to be up for that. And then, yeah, they're going to game at Brookvale, which has been a really unhappy hunting place for us over the last sort of time.

[01:33:12] So I'm going to be in good form, okay, out there. So I'll definitely be at that Brookvale game, and I'll be spraying everybody from the Northern Beaches and I'm looking forward to it. You're heading to Brookey? Wow. Okay. All my coworkers live out there

[01:33:24] and they're all manly fans. So it could be a great day for me, or it could be a really long trip back to Cronulla. All right. Do you want to explain to our listeners what game we're about to play, please? I've been just scrolling through the internet

[01:33:37] aimlessly as I like to do, and I've come across this thing where people give a random top five, right? So I'm going to give Sam five different Sharks players, and I want him to rank them in an order, right?

[01:33:48] So Sam can pick how he wants to rank them on if it's his favorite players, if he wants to rate on who was the better players in their time at the Sharks. However Sam sees fit, he's going to rank them one to five,

[01:34:02] but Sam does not know the five players that I'm going to give him, and he's not able to change it. So if he puts one player like a Paul Galland, he's going to give him the number two later on.

[01:34:12] So again, I'm going to throw these guys at you in no order. So the order that I give you, I'm not going to try and stitch you up, or maybe I am going to try and stitch you up. All right. So for this one too,

[01:34:24] I don't want to go to obscure Shark players. I kind of want to have guys that had decent stints at the club but weren't at the club for super long. So for this week's criteria, I've sort of saved players that have played between 50 games and 100 games.

[01:34:38] There are guys that when we play we want to have at least 50. Yeah, I feel like 50 is a good stint, and I was actually surprised at the amount of players that I looked at that I thought I would have played at least 50 games for us

[01:34:52] that actually didn't make 50 games. And I was also surprised that the players I thought might be in the 90s or 80s but actually played over 100 games. So with that, I think we kick it off, mate. Number one, I'm going to throw out to you

[01:35:06] to put on your list, Sam Icemonger who played 74 games for the Sharks. Icemonger, it won't be a surprise to you. Really big fan. A guy who was crippled by injuries, a great junior career, didn't let us down when he got to the top grade.

[01:35:21] Do you have like info in front of you? Like can you tell me when he played? Like just out of interest or not really? So yeah, so he played from 1998 to 2005, 74 games for the Sharks. He scored nine tries for us. Again, he went to the Dirty Dragons

[01:35:37] so I don't know if that's going to affect your feelings on him. Now how am I judging this? I think I'm just going to judge them as footballers because he was like a guy I really loved so I won't say one. Sam Icemonger. One is being the best

[01:35:54] and five is either one of it, of course. I'm going to put Sam Icemonger of players that play 50 to 100. You might regret this. I'm going to put him at four. I love the guy. Love him. He always gave his all. He's a really cute guy.

[01:36:10] The next random Shark that played over 50 games for us, these aren't random Sharks. These are guys that, you know, they're legit players that played for us for a long time. Nigel Vangana. Now I guess we're basing it on, obviously we're basing it on Cronulla Courier. Nigel Vangana.

[01:36:26] Gee, we were all excited when he came along and you know what? He had good service like he played a lot of Saturdays, played five eighths with Noddy. He was a good man off the field scoring some good tries. Two. Wow. Okay.

[01:36:42] Well, look, the surprising thing when I look at Vangana and I didn't actually feel this, but he played 61 games for us and he scored 32 tries. So that strike rate was actually pretty good for us. I think it was just the dour time and the expectations.

[01:36:56] He wasn't Bulldog Nigel. Like let's not beat around the bush, but he gave us good service. When was he there? So 2004 to 2006. Yeah, it's a short time. He's got one, three and five to go. The next one is one of my favourites of all time for the Sharks.

[01:37:16] An absolute Cronulla Sharks legend in my eyes. Jack Bird. 66 games for the Sharks. Wow. I think you'd probably know where I'm going to go with him. I don't have much room here with Jack Bird. And then I'll look like a fool when you say something else.

[01:37:29] Yeah, Jack Bird was big in the premiership year, man. Big. The grand final with that arm. But even before that, like yes, absolutely. But even before that, Rookie of the Year. His combo with Old Mate was just lights out. And you know he brought a certain swagger

[01:37:48] that we were missing at that point. Debut 2015 right? 2015. So that game against the Chooks where he won the game with the hand over the line the last couple of minutes. Unbelievable. Jack Bird. Not a great ending to the Sharks career.

[01:38:04] I think I'm going to have to go with number one. Because two and four are taken you said? Two and four are taken. He's an apprenticeship winner. He's an apprenticeship winner. I feel like there's a big mozzarella coming. I'll have to go one. Jack Bird won.

[01:38:20] Okay, not a bad choice. Jack Bird, one of my favorite Sharks players, won a comp for us one Rookie of the Year. The next player might make you feel better about your decisions, might make you feel worse, might make you feel uncomfortable about what's to come next.

[01:38:32] Jason Ferris. Yeah, half back five eight, 53 games for the Sharks. Nine tries, 46 goals, one field goal. Was there 99 through 2001. So some pretty good seasons for us. 9901. How many games? 53. He played 14 games in 1999, 12 games in the year 2000, and then 27 games in 2001. How did he get to 27 games in 2021?

[01:39:00] We went to prelim didn't we? No you're right. He got to three and five, is that right? Three and five. Alright, respectfully, I remember him being a really good player. He's going to get a five. You're playing it safe, I don't mind that. I don't mind that.

[01:39:17] You've gone a little bit crazy with some of the other ones, but I'm not here to judge you. I feel like you've been waiting all week for this moment. I just feel like, because people listen to the podcast

[01:39:26] and not watching on YouTube, you can watch on the YouTube. You've got this smile about you that's, I'm ready, let's go. You get me with these random sharks of the week all the time, right? It really tests me.

[01:39:37] So I thought, how can I play some fun and try and fight fire with fire? And I thought this is a great one. When I saw this, I thought this is a great one. So Jason Ferris played 53 games for us.

[01:39:49] I've got a player that played 54 games for us. Now this player is kind of synonymous with the game we just mentioned. So that might give you a bit of a hint for who I've got coming at you. The game being the grand final? No, sharks versus Titans.

[01:40:04] Oh geez. Okay. So you've got one spot left and that number three spot is going to have to go to Preston Campbell. Far out! 54 games for the sharks. He only played 54. Can you believe that impact that he had with us in only 54 games?

[01:40:24] You want to get me started at this late point in the podcast at night about, can I believe it? It's a good game, man. You got me. Who was second? Nigel. So you had your list with Jack Bird at number one,

[01:40:35] Nigel Wangerer at number two, Preston Campbell at number three, Sam Eismonger at number four and Jason Ferris at number five. Now look, it's not the worst list possible. I would change it. Yes, if I could, I would change it. But you know what? You know what?

[01:40:50] It's open for debate because I would change it in a heartbeat. I gave Preston one, Jack two. But Preston never won his comp. Preston never won his comp. Preston wasn't rookie of the year. You know, like all this stuff. Like there's a lot of debate about.

[01:41:04] You could make an argument for Jack Bird having a better shark's career than Preston Campbell. I think you probably did have a better. I think where you probably come in stuff is the Wangerer and also too,

[01:41:12] Preston has a love and a connection with the club that very few players will ever have. I think along with David Pichy, which is an obvious comparison,

[01:41:20] you're not going to find too many players who've had a more endearing like style of football that we would do anything to see again. And you could throw in Adam Dykes. You could throw in a bunch of guys of that era.

[01:41:35] And, you know, obviously Gavin Miller from years ago, who had a beautiful style, but Preston's style of football was pretty much unstoppable. And yeah, we're going to talk about that in the off season about what went wrong there again. But you got me good, man.

[01:41:49] You got me good. I mean, you know what Jack Bird didn't do? He didn't win Dalyan Player of the Year. Hey, look, I mean, statistically, Vanganar on paper was actually a lot healthier for us than I remember too.

[01:42:02] Right. So it's not the worst list, but hey, look, I think it's a good start. But there's a lot of players in that.

[01:42:08] I chopped and changed on a couple of those ones because I wanted to get some more random ones in there as well as high quality ones that I thought might have actually spent longer with this

[01:42:15] because guys like Jack Bird and Preston Campbell, I feel are such big parts of our history, but they only played that. They didn't get to 100 games over 100 games, which is a real shame for me.

[01:42:27] And the guys that fit in perfectly as Sam Isemunga and then when you say, well, Vanganar was there for three years. Okay, cool. That fits in. And when you think of Preston Campbell, you think Dalyan, you think legend, so many great moments, which there was.

[01:42:40] Yeah. But then you're like, well, hang on. He only kind of came to light towards the end of John Lang's coaching career. He only played a handful of games in that too that he was punted. It makes perfect sense. They didn't play more than 57 games or whatever.

[01:42:54] So I might have to think more about this next time. Just looking at Campbell's stats here, height 6'7", sorry, 6'7", 5'6", it's getting late now, he's 5'6 and 73 kilos.

[01:43:07] And to do the things that he did over, you know, 267 games in first grade, you know, only 54 those were with the sharks. I mean, that's incredible what he was able to do.

[01:43:19] I remember watching him in, I think it must have been reserve grade and he was playing on the wing and he was just as good and super exciting. But when you're a winger, you look even smaller because you're just out on that edge.

[01:43:33] Even back in those days, like he looked tiny. And then when they threw him into half back and 5'8", it was like, oh, it makes a bit more sense for the height and everything. But you know, he played fullback, he played a bunch of different positions.

[01:43:47] I feel like he might have, I don't know if officially, but he might have during games played hooker. So he filled in a lot of gaps. He was a small dude and he wouldn't back down from anyone.

[01:43:58] Like some of my favourite games, like the Canterbury game in the finals and I won. He was just unbelievable. He carried that team so well. He was down for Indigenous round, he couldn't stay for the game. He was down for the last training session.

[01:44:16] But he's been to a few of the other games over the years in the last few years. It's so exciting. You know, Peach is down a couple of times a year. It's so exciting to see those guys. Yeah, you got me good, man.

[01:44:28] I would go Preston one, Jack Bird two and then stick with the rest, I think. Yeah, Manganard three, I think. I think that's probably the perfect list. But hey, we don't get to know who's coming next on this list.

[01:44:40] It could have been Chris Beatty because Chris Beatty was on this list for a very long time. Good player. A great, an origin player for us. He played a lot. He was very impactful, he was very physical.

[01:44:51] But hey, I was just trying to find ways to stump you because you get me every week. Obviously with the responses from us tonight, it's less fun being on this side. But I'm happy to do it. Like, it's fun. It's fun. I'm happy to do it.

[01:45:06] I've never done that kind of challenge before as well. And it could be different ways to rank him too. It could just be personal preference, favorites or you might even say, you know what?

[01:45:12] This week I'm going to do it based on playing style, looks, shoe sizes, whatever you want. That's up to you. All right, Kieran, I've kept you up long enough. I can't believe you're still awake. You've thoroughly impressed me. Usually you're in bed by 5.30 p.m.

[01:45:26] It's way past that. But it's all going to be huge from here on in. We've got the Titans, then we've got the Raiders and the NRLW on Saturday. Big fan Kieran of the split days for the teams. I know we want to watch them together.

[01:45:38] Makes sense to watch them together. Spreads it out. Yeah, it spreads it out. Sharks playing Friday, sharks playing Saturday. Beautiful. Let's go. Thanks everyone for being in touch. Appreciate it. Hope you've enjoyed this episode. We will talk about your travel schedule.

[01:45:55] You know, off air, we'll talk about that privately and we'll work out where you're going to be the next few Mondays and we'll adjust. But appreciate you. Appreciate all of our listeners. You know what to do. Subscribe, follow us.

[01:46:04] The other important thing is to tell all your friends and family and colleagues and footy mates and people you sit at the footy with and people you see on the train and people you're at the doctor's surgery and they're wearing Sharks gear. Tell them about Sharkars pod. Enemies.

[01:46:19] Yeah, because that might irritate them because they might not like us. But just tell everyone about us and keep spreading the word. Pods trending well. It's doing great. I'm perfectly happy with how we're going, but we can never have enough listeners or viewers.

[01:46:33] We just love doing this for everyone. So we really appreciate all the feedback. It's awesome going to the games and just people saying good day. It's super sweet. We appreciate it. We will talk to you another time. That's for sure. Sharkars pod signing out.

[01:46:48] Kieran, can't thank you enough buddy. I'll talk to you soon. Everyone else have a great week. It's time up. Up ground. Let's get that win baby. Sharkars! Sharkars! Sharkars! Sharkars! Back in the Shire. Turn your points lights off because we're coming home with a trophy.