Postgame Livestream Round 25, 2026 Cronulla at Gold Coast

[00:00:01] The Royal Motor Yacht Club Port Hacking is a hidden gem of the Shire, situated on the banks of the beautiful Port Hacking. It's a great place to catch up with friends, celebrate your birthday or any special occasion, and they always show the NRL live on the big screens. The RMYC Port Hacking, proud sponsors of this podcast and big supporters of the Cronulla Sutherland Sharks. Check out their website rmycph.com.au

[00:00:26] They've got a Facebook page, or you could go old school and call them on 029523 9300

[00:00:51] Hey there, welcome to SharkCast Pod, a podcast dedicated to the greatest sporting club in the history of the world.

[00:02:15] The mighty Cronulla Sutherland Sharks. We did it, we won a game. It didn't look good for a little bit, but we got there. Eight point win, 30 points to 22 over the Gold Coast Titans, who at times were pretty good, but the Sharks got there in the end. A lot to talk about. A lot of the socials and inboxing was going a bit bonkers at halftime, which I appreciate and respect.

[00:02:41] But we did it. All we needed to do was win. We are down on troops. We are down on a 5.8, down on a center. Center's not coming back. 5.8 will be back. So, a lot to talk about. I'd love to hear from you guys and girls. If you want to dial in, feel free to. There's a link for StreamYard. If you don't want to, it's totally cool. If you do want to, then put your screen off and just talk. Happy to do that.

[00:03:06] But whatever you guys and girls want to do, it's not a great time. 4 p.m. on a Sunday. I know people will probably tune in later for the delayed version of the podcast version, but a whole bunch are here now, which is awesome. So, stick around and we'll talk all things Sharks. Sharks winning 30 points to 22. We saw some spectacular stuff out there. Let's get straight to some of your comments.

[00:03:28] That's ghastly 10 says, let's take it and go on to next week. Second half was good and first quarter of the game was strong. I like that. I like that. Dan says, Nico is playing much better second receiver. Oh, sorry. He's much better playing second receiver. Really missing Trindle and Rameen. I still think top four won't happen, but hey. Hey, Dan, come on. Come on. All we need is to keep winning and the Dolphins lose a game.

[00:03:59] But I appreciate your thoughts. Appreciate you being there. Hope you're well. Congrats again on the news that you sent us during the week. Holy cow. Ashes up, up, up, up. That's how we roll. And he also says the Sutherland Sharks soccer have made the playoffs for the first time since 2013 and qualified for the Australian Championship this summer. The Sharks are circling NRL and NPL. It's feeding time. Okay, cool. Congratulations to all involved.

[00:04:26] Sandra says, I wouldn't say it was a great win, but a win is a win. Sorry, Josh Hannae. No, it wasn't a great win, but it's things I liked about it coming from behind. Everyone wrote them off at halftime, except for a few people probably, and second half pretty comprehensive. So there was a lot to like. Still a lot to work on. Phil the fiery said, much needed win. Not clinical, but hey. And he's in Perth. You're not usually in Perth, are you, Phil?

[00:04:57] JJMM21 says, a win is a win. Whatever Fitzy said at halftime obviously worked. Janet says, a win is a win, I say. A lot of that going around. Thank you, Janet. Future Dude says, thank the Lord. I only need to be seething about Tottenham's loss this morning instead of Vegas Sharks loss on top of that. Look, I'm not up to date with the EPL. All my team plays overnight, and I'm not that invested in the moment in my life, but tell me what happened, and I'll commiserate with you.

[00:05:25] Some of my best mates are Tottenham fans, so I know how it goes. Brendan says, first half was a bit horrible. Second half much better, and a win is a win. Sharky Boy Gonzalez. I'm hopeful Haradi just needed more game time and will be on the same level as Ramian. Fingers crossed Roosters beat Dolphins to come to keep our top four alive.

[00:05:51] I don't know if Marwini's going to get to the stages of what Jesse was bringing us. I thought in the second half he got a bit better, and probably his best game in the last three weeks or however long it's been. But I think he's still got a bit of improving to go. We saw some amazing stuff from Sione Katoa, not just the try, but a bunch of other stuff. But to be fair, there was some errors and that kind of thing in there as well. So lots to talk about. Grunge Meister Fuzz.

[00:06:20] Full credit, a game in two halves. Literally. Second half differences. The forwards owned the middle. Nephi backed himself. Good kicks. Let Nico run. Completed sets. Stopped passing to open grass. Yeah, well said. They did look pretty clunky in that first half, but we got there. Brendan says two points is two points. What about this from Greg? Breaking news. I'd swap my two kids and wife to have Katoa stay.

[00:06:51] I'll tell you what. If you didn't get off your lounge when you scored that try, you probably can't get off your lounge. And I can barely get off mine, and I got off mine. Sharky Pete, the great man, Cooper Cronk, suggesting it would. He suggested they'd won Sharky Pete, but then he had breaking news at the end. He went all heel on us. If you don't know what heel is, it's a wrestling term for a bad guy. And he said the Sharks should finish fifth or sixth. They can't win the comp. And they got a better chance of winning the comp.

[00:07:20] And I understand where he's coming from, so research what I just said. But Peter said never in doubt. Future Dude said must win game again next week, especially if the Finns lose to the Chooks. Oh, Future Dude, they're all must win games from here on in, brother. Like, they all are. Let's not even worry about that. They all are must win games if you want to finish fourth. Like, that's just how it is. We got a bit of relief yesterday with Souths and Newcastle both losing, I'm correct, I think, in saying.

[00:07:49] So that is what's going on there. I will get to the Instagram comments really shortly. Alan said first half. Oh, I can't say that word. No good. Second half by Nico. Great long passes from him. Yeah, absolutely. He found his form in the second half. Chris said let's go Sharks. That was a great try on the second half. Bring on the slippery Parramatta Eels. We'll get to all that, Chris. We'll get to all that. Ghastly 10 said Katoa was frustrating me today.

[00:08:17] His crazy try will get him out of some criticism. Yeah, I agree with that. But I will go into bat for him a little bit today because I thought that the good outweighed the bad. And I thought he did a bunch of things that other people in that position probably wouldn't be able to do today in that position in this point of time. So Sione Katoa, two tries, one spectacular. 16 runs, 120 meters, 10 tackle busts, two line breaks.

[00:08:47] Credited at the moment for one error, one missed tackle. So if you look at the bare bones of those on paper, come on, we can live with that. I appreciate what you're saying though. I felt some of that at the same time, probably in the missed tackle and in the error situation. But I thought it outweighed the bad stuff. Grunge Monster Fuzz says second half's beheaded by Sifer, AFB and Cam. We'll get to all that. Like, oh my God. Sifer and AFB. And Cam, to be fair, was really good.

[00:09:18] Sharky Pete, yep. The great man, Cooper Cronk, thinking we're better off in fifth or sixth. He's a great man, but I don't know if I'm going to go along with that. DeletedGirl67 said first half would look like a bottom four side. Fits his blast at halftime, woke them up. When's he learned though? Don't pick Harati. So still off Harati. DeletedGirl67, I appreciate that. Harati, 100 meters. Five tackle bus.

[00:09:47] 21 tackles, two misses, two errors. Okay. AFB, my mum. That's what Dion wrote. And I don't know what that means, but I like it. I hope it's not disrespectful to anyone. Sandra says, thanks for doing these podcasts. They're great. Thank you. No, Sandra, thank you. Appreciate you being on board. We're doing it for a while now. So make sure you like and subscribe and share everywhere and tell your friends and family and neighbors and friends and football friends and people you go to the ground with. Tell everyone. Let's get going. I'm fired up now.

[00:10:17] Took a couple of minutes and I'm still going to get to the Insta people. Prancer, is it just me? But every time I see Catello carry the ball, I hope he doesn't drop it. We all feel that sometimes, I think. Marky Marks is line speed in the second half. Sorry, line speed and ball handling. And the first half was poo. I can say that word. Did the Titans score every time they were on our line? It felt like it. Oh, I'm not sure about that. I have to go watch that back. Future Dude says, like him or hate him? You can't hate him. You could dislike him.

[00:10:46] Catello's try in the second half is try of the year worthy. Well, I wrote down the quote and I think it's from Cooper Cronk and I'll get to it. But it says, that is one of the best tries you'll ever see of all time. So, Grunge Meister Fuzz. Have I read that one out? I might have read that one out. But praise for Sifa AFB and Cam. Pete says, needed that win but no way can we have Puru in the sixth next week. Well, that's interesting you say that, Pete. I thought his second half was a lot better than his first.

[00:11:13] And it's interesting you say it because in the pre-game interview on Fox, Coach mentioned that Riley Pollard was super close. And I haven't heard him say those words publicly before. So, I don't think you'll see Riley come in unless there's an injury to someone. Because I think what Nephi did today was enough. And when we look at the whole picture, Pete, like he was a bit clunky in that first half. Absolutely.

[00:11:40] But when they were bad in periods today, I thought they were all kind of bad. I didn't think it was one or two guys like Blake Braley with a bad pass from dummy half. It all just kind of went downhill for a bit and they gathered themselves. But I take your point. Sarah says, as always, I'd love to know what Fitzy said to them. Well, you can only imagine, right?

[00:12:04] I can confirm this, that after the Dragons loss two weeks ago, an almighty, almighty yelling at. I can confirm that. Wes says, hey Sam, up, up. But wow, that was hard to watch again. Oh, it was at times. Yep. Malcolm says, as tough as it was, great way to regain form and confidence. And I agree. They were down. What was it? They were down by eight at halftime maybe and came back.

[00:12:33] Ashley said, he didn't play today, but I want to credit Tricky for being an absolute tough guy. If I wanted to continue last week, just beside not being allowed, I love and respect the toughness of him. Thank you. You know what? I'm just going to jump over to Insta for a sec, guys. Hello, everyone on Insta. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Dana says, that try from Katoa. Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous. Riley and Mozzie Bites have joined at the same time. Two great men.

[00:13:03] Two great men, exceptional at what they do. Okay, everyone's on there. They're good. Dana says, I'm going to miss Ziffer next year. Jeez. He was unbelievable the way he came back today on the field. Him and his cousin, AFB, absolutely lighting it up. Now, my man Jay, the legendary Jay. Take the two points today. First half was poor. Too many push passes from the back line. And we look better when we're playing direct at the middle and playing with quick play the balls. Worst case now, we won't finish any lower than sixth.

[00:13:32] So that's good. And maybe we can host a game at Granola. That's a whole other can of worms, which we're getting close to opening. But I'm still going for fourth. Let's go for fourth. Come on. Jay says, we won two captain's challenges. How good? Not for once. It's happened a few times this year. But yes, usually we don't do it. Ash says, hey, Sam, will I go to the Chad Townsend? Podcast launch at Highfields on September the 10th.

[00:13:59] Well, without revealing my social life in public, Ash, and telling everyone about my life, I'll be going. Yeah. There's an announcement today that Chad's doing a live show at Highfields in Caring Bar. And it's going to be like a 2016 premiership live version of what he does with the podcast. And it's Gallon, Wade Graham, Luke Lewis, maybe Maloney, someone else. It looks like a stack of fun. And I can confirm that all being well, I shall be there, Ash.

[00:14:26] Jay says, not sure how Hiroti could bomb that try early in the first half. That was a bad miss. You'll have to remind me. I'm sure I made note of it. Oh, the forward pass. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Catch and pass. Come on. Yes. Thank you. So Delita Girl's got some love for our friend Riley. Riley for Nephi. He was terrible today. If you saw Riley yesterday, you would agree. So let me hold you up there on two points, Delita Girl 67.

[00:14:55] Nephi was not terrible today. He had a really disappointing first half with his hands. Defensively, okay. Second half, a lot better. And he and Nico played to their strengths. I did see Riley play yesterday. I see him play every week. I watch every minute of the Jets and of the lower grades. And Riley was outstanding. We're embarrassing him because he may still be watching. He joined the stream. But I'm a huge Riley Pollard guy.

[00:15:24] I don't think he'll get into first grade this year unless there's an injury. Or for some reason, we lose the next two games. And then, I don't know. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think form's going to come into it. I think Riley can get his shot this year if there's an injury. We don't want injuries. But Riley's future is set. He's going to be awesome in the top grade when his time comes. And I'm a huge fan. And he was great yesterday. Not all the Jets performed at the top of their level, but a lot of them did.

[00:15:54] And it was great to see. And they got the win. And they're off to the finals. David said, I was confused with the first half. What was I watching? I kept shaking my head. I was still a little scared in the second half. Yeah, I got you, David. I didn't think it was as poor as the Dragons game. And it was kind of different to last week. But we turned it around. Did what we had to do. I'm on record in saying one point win would have done.

[00:16:24] We just got to keep moving on, man. It's not about executing at a high level in this game against the Titans. You just want to get out of there with the two points. If you can execute at a high level, different story, of course. And I'm on Merseyside Reds. Merseyside Reds play overnight. After the first half, it left me a loss for non-swearing words. Credit to Fitzy and the boys for the turnaround. Now for a Reds win. Come on, Paul. Let's go. We've got Newcastle away, I think.

[00:16:54] So let's see how that goes. Brendan AFB came on and changed the game with his direct running and soft hands. Yes. Iro made some great runs and was close to man of the match for me. We'll get to the play performances in a second. I just want to get through a bunch of these comments. Sharks win 30-22. AFB and Talakai were unbelievable in the second half to a lesser extent, but still definitely worth mentioning. I thought Cam McInnes really provided some punch down the middle.

[00:17:25] But yeah, Talakai. I think he played bigger minutes as well in that second half, which they needed. I was worried they'd get him to come off and be like, but he stayed on. Mark says, Positives are only second time we've come back from a first half deficit. That's my stat. What are you doing? That's right. So Dragons earlier in the year and this was the second time. Thanks for reminding me. I'd totally forgotten about that horribleness. Forward's got to roll on and allow the halves to get their mojo on. Need to fix that sluggish defense for finals. Yep. A lot to improve on. That's for sure.

[00:17:56] Dion says, I thought Puru was a bit, how are you going today? Or was he just rusty? Would Pollard get a go next week? So I'm answering these in a bit of delay. I apologize. I can't already answer that, Dion. I don't want to embarrass Riley too much because you might still be watching or listening. But I don't think Riley will get a crack unless there's an injury. We don't want injuries. We love Riley. So it's that we're kind of torn. But I thought Puru did enough today in the second half.

[00:18:23] I'll need to go watch it back, you know, without the emotion and everything else. Definitely first half clunky. I thought a bunch of them were. And, you know, Nico still getting caught in the fifth. There's a lot of pressure on Nephi to do things. We got through it. Won the game. Yeah. So looking at Nephi's numbers, he ran five times to 50 meters. Engaged the line a couple of times.

[00:18:52] So he made 33 tackles with two misses. So Nephi made 33 tackles with two misses. One handling error, one penalty conceded, which he then mouthed off and got marched for 10. I didn't like that. And he kicked seven times to 250 meters, according to foxsports.com.au. So I didn't think it was the horrific game that a lot of people thought.

[00:19:20] But I thought the first half was a bit clunky from him. But I thought he turned around enough. But I don't think Riley will get a go just yet. I don't think he would let us down. And it was the first time I've heard Fitzy publicly say lately that Riley Pallad was super close to playing. Sharky Pete says, thanks for the pod. We drove over the Hills District to do the Cronulla Beach Walk and called in a Mr. Paisley's on the way home. Name dropped the Shark Cast, as Louie calls it.

[00:19:50] Oh, that's awesome, Sharky Pete. I'm glad you did. If you ever get out of Mr. Paisley's, make sure you talk about the Shark Cast, as Luke Lewis calls it. And let them know that we're sending love their way. So thanks so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Best coffee in the world. Food's amazing. People are great. Adam said, Puru played better than Nico today. But Billy needs to start over Nicora. That's a good question. That's a good statement. If you're asking the question, I thought Nico played better. Definitely some fancy try assists.

[00:20:21] But I thought they both had important moments. Yeah, but I respect your opinion. Malcolm says, Puru is four wins from four getting the job done. And that's his role as a fill-in. So maybe we're just looking at it too close, Malcolm. If you look at it like that, I mean, you can't argue with that, right? Jay says, in regards to, I think, Riley Pollard, you've got to remember the jump from New South Wales Cup to first graders a lot with how quick it is. Absolutely.

[00:20:52] Good point. But I'm backing him in. His time's coming next year. So, but as I said, we don't want injuries. The more injuries, the less likely we're going to do something special. David said, fly on the wall at halftime would have been interesting. Absolutely. I don't know. I'll find out for you guys and girls. I don't think he would have necessarily lost the plot. Maybe some harsh reminders, more likely. Grunge Meister Fuzz says, AFB lost the Kung Fu ponytail.

[00:21:21] The cue ball seems to be giving him extra post-contact meters. Hey, that's you calling him that, not me. He was awesome today. He did, what did he do? He did the hit up. No, he did the line break assist for Siffer. Siffer went nuts. And then he backed it up next play and scored with four or five goals on him. Very Fafita-like and just absolutely needed. That was the change.

[00:21:48] NRL Merseyside Red said, madness from Cooper Cronk to suggest where a chance to be two wins from a grand final is not as good as fifth or sixth. The comp is a week-to-week proposition with injuries and suspensions. Look, no one likes Cooper Cronk more than me. Like, I'm his biggest fan in all sincerity. I love him as a player. I love him as an analyst. He's my colleague. Even I almost fell off the lounge when he said that. I completely understand what he's saying and where he's coming from. I just don't agree with it. But I get it.

[00:22:17] He doesn't think that we can beat the top three teams. And he thinks we're going to our shell week two. I get it. But we think that on our day, maybe we can give someone a shake. So you've got to finish as high as you can. Absolutely. Blair says, up, up, Cronk. I hope you enjoyed the game, Blair. I'm sure you did. Ghastly Tens says, I really like Cam off the bench. Hope it's the way to go into the finals. Yeah, I liked it. We had Tall Tom Hazelton named at Lock. I'm not sure officially who played Lock. Might have been Colquhoun.

[00:22:44] But three middles, AFB, Colquhoun, and Tall Tom. That's pretty badass. I like that a lot. Deleted Girl 67 says, 50, 12, 1, half time, amongst other things, to lift and improve discipline or they were going to lose or they deserve to lose. Yeah, the discipline wasn't great. Wasn't great at all. Jumping over to our Insta friends. 50% says, 5 a.m. early start in the UK for that one. If I had a hat, I'd take it off to you.

[00:23:14] Sharks also needed the first half to wake up. Siffer is a game changer. Needs more minutes. Might sound extreme, but the loss of Jesse could be the biggest loss to any side in the comp. The balance he offers in attack, defense, and experience is vital and clearly missing. Yeah, I think that we all, as a Shark Nation, as a Shark Cast universe, we've definitely underrated the loss of Jesse Ramian. And he's had a pretty good year.

[00:23:39] And at his best, he's a dominating, bustling, smart center. At his worst, he's not that much below it. Like he's – I don't see Jesse having three out of ten games. You guys and girls may disagree. But at his best, he's unbelievable. When he's just sort of not at his best, he's still really dominant. So it's a big one, yeah. And, you know, Haradi was okay today, but he's not going to reach those heights with all respects.

[00:24:13] So something that we're going to have to get past for sure. Thanks for making the comments, 50%. Hope you get some coffee into you and thanks for getting up and watching the game on behalf of the team and the club and the fans. It's a great effort, my friend. Blair says, after a hectic week, good to see the Sharkies get the win. On to next week. Well, I hope you're doing well, Blair. Some emails coming in as well. Ghastly 10 says, NRL website has AFP with 29 tackles and none missed.

[00:24:42] Foxsports.com.au has 27 and no misses. So they're pretty close. Absolutely. Now, I did want to read out something. Keep the messages coming. Really appreciate it. Andrew wrote to me at halftime, which he sometimes does. And I happen to see it. Don't always see it, but he did. I'm not going to read it all out. I'm not sure if he's with the game or not. I can't remember where Andrew's from, but he wasn't happy at halftime. And I don't blame him. He was disappointed with the team, especially based on the past three weeks. I'm not going to read out the rest.

[00:25:12] I just wanted to say thanks, Andrew, for the comment. I appreciate your input to the show. Hope you enjoyed the second half. We move on. He wouldn't mind me reading it out, but there's not much more that is really relevant now after the fact. So we'll leave it for another time if he wants me to read that out. But just wanted to give him some acknowledgement there. Steve says, my dad says hi. Can you please say hi to him? His name is Gordes. Hey, Gordes. How are you going?

[00:25:41] We love Steve on the show. I hope Gordes is a Sharks fan. It's okay if you're not. But we hope you are. Hope you're doing well. Ash is giving his three two ones, but it's just three. Straight to Sione for the try of the year. Tim says the second half is what I expect from the 2026 Sharks. Absolutely. First half wasn't good enough. Completely agree. We're going to get into a bunch of the analytics shortly.

[00:26:08] Shake is going there saying our right edge is awful defensively. They're going to get exposed in the finals. So that's definitely one of the things that I wasn't happy with in the first half particularly. Now, I think it is something you can work on, and I think it's something you can prove with three weeks to go to the finals, more or less. But you want to get a move on, and you want to do a lot of film, and you want to do a lot of on-field practice during the weeks. Because the attack's fine.

[00:26:37] The attack's fine. It's all about defense now. So I agree with you. I thought that it probably wasn't up to scratch. But there's not a lot of choices there. I know everyone thinks there's all these choices of people that can come in. It's like it's not that easy. Adam says Blake Braley had a big game. He absolutely did. He really did. I thought he was terrific. I thought at times all the spine really lifted.

[00:27:04] And I think when Nico was sort of at his most frustrated, so he was trying things that weren't working, maybe he was making a few errors, etc. I thought the other spine members lifted for the first time in a while, like Blake especially. But I thought Nephi in his own way held his own in the second half. And I thought Kennedy had some really great moments too. Robin says no to Puru and Haradi. Fair enough. Tell me who you'd have instead.

[00:27:31] David says, should we be playing finals grade football already warming up for the big show? I don't know. I think that we've done that over the past two and a half months. And then we had a bit of a hiccup the last two weeks, maybe two and a half weeks. But, or two and a half games I should say. But at this point I want to finish fourth, yeah? So you just got to win the game. So if you're beating the Titans in the last 10 minutes and if you're beating the Eels next week by, I don't know,

[00:28:00] eight points or whatever, or a field goal and you're coming home to a massive game against a Storm and it's going to be massive for heaps of different reasons, well, you want to still be in the hunt. So it's not about, I think at the moment it's not about the finals. I think it's just about winning every week, week to week, one game at a time. Adam says the first half was a dog's breakfast. Second half was better. Three weeks in a row against average teams we played one half of footy. Yeah, fair. Fair.

[00:28:30] I shouldn't get too upbeat here, Adam. I think that's a fair assessment. But you're only as good as your last half of footy. Danny says, happy to eat my words on the win, but can we have an 80-minute performance? Well, I don't know if we can. Trish says, up, up from Seabus. Plus, how good? I've been following Trish and Chris and some of their friends on their journey up the coast and stopping at nice places to eat and drink and having a good time, living a good life. So congratulations to you guys. What a great time.

[00:28:59] Shake says, the team is so slow, too clean line breaks and our support players get caught both times. Painful to watch going to cost us in the big games, not to ice those moments. Yeah, look, I mean, in finals footy, whether it's elimination or not, week one or not, we're going to have to tweak a lot of things. We're going to have to tighten up a lot of things. So from the start of this show, I've said we've got to improve.

[00:29:28] I'm not Mr. Positivity today. It's more I'm super happy we won. There's a lot of good things there, but we've still got to keep moving on and getting better because I want to get back to pre-Dragons. At the moment, as Adam Flanagan said, we've had one pretty good half of football. That's it. Danny says, last few weeks shows we should have had a couple of debuts. What's with Fitzy not wanting to debut players? Now you'd have to ask him that. Can't speak for the great man. I can tell you this.

[00:29:56] Like, I watch every minute of lower grade football, whether it's live or during the week. I catch up on it. I watched the Newtown Jets yesterday. And one of the guys that everyone's pushing in, who I think has got a great future, didn't have a good game. He didn't scream, put me in first grade. I'm not saying that he won't be there next year. I'm not saying he won't be there this year at some point. But it's not as easy as some of you think.

[00:30:24] Like, you don't just get handed a jersey, you know? Like, show me what you got. Didn't happen yesterday. I'm being fair. Wasn't zero out of ten, but wasn't seven or eight either. Trish said, disappointed none of the team came over to the eastern side of the ground where hundreds of people were waiting. That's a bummer. Sorry to hear that. I'm not sure what we can do about that, really.

[00:30:51] Obviously nothing now, but usually they're pretty good with that kind of thing. Maybe they're getting on a plane soon. I don't know. They probably are, to be honest. It'd be a quick turnaround. I know it seems like five, ten minutes doesn't make a difference, but they're on a clock here. And I don't know. Maybe it's something to do with that. I'm not sure. Steven said, is the link to chat live using the comments? Oh, it usually is. Let me throw it in. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Steve.

[00:31:20] That's Steve over in Perth. It's there now, hopefully, my friend. Sharky Pete says we can't continue. Sorry, Sharky Hunter. Sorry. Sharky Hunter says we can't continue paying Nikora 800+. Nico is the ultimate confidence player. First 40 and second 40 chalk and cheese up up. I'm not sure what we're paying him. I don't know if it's 800+. It's not cheap. That's for sure. I mean, I thought he was a lot better this week in the past two weeks. That's for sure.

[00:31:47] How many tries is Katoa on now? Close to 100. He's very close to 100. I don't have that on me. Maybe I can find out for you. Again, Katoa like a lot better this week in a lot of ways. Still some negatives there, but there was some game-changing stuff. It's not even just the kicks. It's a lot of the runs, the tackle bus. I was happy for him today. Copped a lot of flack throughout the week. He's on 96 tries, I think. I think 96 tries.

[00:32:17] He's getting closer. Robbie says, Nikoreta Center burns to the edge. Not sure about that. I understand where you're coming from. I'm not sure. I'd have to sleep on that one. Wes says, Puru wasn't great, but I'm not sure blooding a rookie now is going to be any better. I think that's pretty mature. However, Sheikh says, he doesn't like Haradi, and if Gabriel isn't even on par with him, let's get rid of him now. It's not like, I wasn't saying that about the guy that played yesterday.

[00:32:47] I was referring to my own Gabriel, but I mean, you've got to give him time. Give him a chance. I'm just saying at the moment, he's not exactly lights out in cup. That's all. He's got all the attributes. I didn't think Haradi was awful today. I'm just going to be level with you. It's not me being fan boy or whatever else. I thought his second half was better than his first. There was obviously some errors there. Mistry, start with the forward pass. I get it, but don't forget, but he is, you know,

[00:33:16] not a starting center. He's not a starting NRL player. So I'll get to you shortly stats. So it won't be long. David says, is Gord's not a member. We can offer upgrade membership as an entry level membership, but it's still an upgrade. I don't know what that means. David, I think Gord's is just doing fine watching the stream, to be honest. Wes says, maybe play Sifa. If they don't have Michael Gabriel, I'm over Haradi. Fair enough. Cameron says, can we try at least to bring in Michael Gabriel?

[00:33:46] I feel Haradi is not gelling well with Katoa. We need to look to the future. We can try it. I'm all for trying things. I'm not, I'm not the one making the calls. I'm just sort of saying maybe why the calls aren't being made. A lot of flack here from Marwini. And it's all, well, I don't know if it's respectful, but I'm happy to chuck it up. The leader girl says, won't win a finals game with him there. That's a big statement. Adam says, we do have a young center named Michael Gabriel, and we should play him. We should, we should give him a shot, but I'm telling you,

[00:34:15] based on his game yesterday alone, it's not looking amazing, but he'll get there. He's a good player. Pete says, do you think Will Kennedy would go okay at six? Potentially. I think he's a pretty smart footballer. Potentially. Cameron says, we need to look at the future. Yep. Got you. Danny says, Roddy was an average below five.

[00:34:43] Why does every other club blood and debut players, but Fitz, he won't again. I can't answer that for the him, but I don't know if the people that you want to be blooded in that position are quite ready right now. I don't know how more I can say it. Getting all confused here. Okay. Shake says, Britt missed two tackles for line break. He was not good today. Fair enough. I need to go watch some of that back. Danny says,

[00:35:14] Gabriel could have been rusty because he hasn't played much because he'd been sitting on the bench. I don't know. You could, I'm not, I'm not knocking the guy. I'm just telling you what happened yesterday. That's all I'm saying. Francis says, I thought Heroddy was better today. Shake says, if you want to play Britt at center, go watch the game against the rabbits where he played 40 minutes there and was caught out multiple times. Stop with Britt to center. Pete told me tigers are up eight six. Holy smoke.

[00:35:42] Malcolm says zero was sensational today. Brendan also give me a score update. Wesley says pitchfork throughout for Heroddy. I agree that he was better in the second half, but yeah, that's fair enough. All right, let's get to our man stats all the way from Perth, Australia in his Jersey. How are you, sir? Sammy, good, mate. How are you? I'm good. Got a win. Happy, happy. Yeah, mate. A week ago, we weren't small as much, were we? No,

[00:36:11] definitely not. And the smile didn't, at halftime, the smile still hadn't arrived either, really. Correct. Correct. I think we were down, was it 16, eight, something like that. So 14, eight. Yeah. 14, eight, I think. 14, eight. So I thought one more try to the Titans would have been pretty interesting to see where we were going to go from there. But thankfully we bounced back. I think people haven't mentioned we had two tries disallowed or turned back.

[00:36:41] So the scoreline, it might be flattering to them. I don't know. Yeah, we bombed a couple. I think the decisions the referee got out there were pretty, pretty spot on for the ones that were disallowed. Our forwards did such a good job today. The big fellas, like we seem to be able to move upfield so easily.

[00:37:11] This obviously won't be as such an opportunity, such a good opportunity when you come against the big teams. So, you know, yeah, we started the game extremely well, making meters, making meters, made a few options, didn't score. Then we did score, but let one in. And then you're like, okay, are we seeing some sort of, instantly, you know, once it, once the team comes back and scores pretty quickly on us,

[00:37:38] I get these little nervous Nelly moments and thinking, well, we're in for a fight here and we're going to have to work hard to get out of it. And at halftime, I wasn't necessarily convinced we could do it, but second half, we bombed, smashed it. Did, um, you might know, uh, I hadn't noticed, had Talakai come on in the first half or did he come on after halftime? I feel like he didn't come on in the first half. If he did, it wasn't for very long, but I think. When he came on, he was monumental. Yeah,

[00:38:08] he was. I think he and AFB might've come on at the same time, I think in the second half. And yeah, there was that beautiful moment where AFB put him through for a line break. And I think it's the very next tackle is where AFB scores. Um, and, and Talakai was just involved in everything. He was super good today. And I'm glad that Fitzy kept him on. I was a bit worried that he might sort of give him a 10 minute stint and, you know, go by the book and go, he's coming off, but he let him play on, which was great. And, you know, I mean,

[00:38:38] I don't want to go there now because we are, it's just an obvious statement. We are going to miss Sifatala. But I'll tell you what, he could be really, really, uh, handy in the finals. He could be a game changer for sure. He's a game changer. He's been a game changer for three years, mate. I'm still a little bit dumbfounded that he doesn't get the time on the pitch that I think he deserves. Um, he is a game changer. He's an impact player. Um, yeah, absolutely. I know most of us are pretty sorry to see him go.

[00:39:09] Yeah. Uh, I'm very happy to see him back after what I thought was a season, uh, or Cronulla Sharks career ending injury. Yeah. Which is great to have him back. Uh, yeah, he's just, he's, he just was so good. As you said, with AFB to, um, hitting that ball up. And then Cam scored that try off the, off the meaty heat up, uh, hit up from, uh, Siffra as well. Yeah. really good. How good was that try by Katoa?

[00:39:39] Uh, it was unbelievable. My, my first instinct was maybe it hit the white line. Just, I don't know. I wasn't being negative or anything. I was like, Oh my God, I was off the lounge, the whole thing. But then I was like, that looks super tight. But one replay kind of squash that. And I liked what the commentator said. It might've been Kronk. He said that if he'd gone one-on-one with him, he might've been barreled out. So he kind of went over him or whatever the hell he did. So, um, yeah, terrific. You know, like he's got his negatives in his game. I get it. He's not the fastest man.

[00:40:08] He can drop a ball. He did one today, but I think overall moments like that really can define games and, and list spirits. And, uh, I liked his game today. I thought he was decent. Absolutely. We were still behind. I can tell you right now, stats, that when Sione scored the second try, uh, we were ahead. We were ahead. Just, it took us through, it took us to like an eight point buffer. So yeah, we were ahead. Just, yeah. Yeah. So very important. Very important.

[00:40:38] Yeah. We, a few Nico passes were brilliant today. Uh, the one out to Ronnie for Ronnie's, uh, try at the end was, uh, spectacular as well. Good to see him running as good. What, that little, uh, break early in the game from Braley, um, was fantastic. Um, We just went running from sideways sideways, and then just found the gap, uh, convinced the defenders that he was going to give it to T. That was, that was, that was just brilliant. And that's, um,

[00:41:07] that's Braley at his best. And we need to see more of that. But as we know, a lot of people commenting last week, Braley had no runs last week. Yeah. We know why he had no runs last week. Yeah. And probably goes back a little bit to what I said at the beginning. That's, uh, when we got four, when, when we are such a dominant forward pack and they are living up to their potential. Yeah. And that's definitely easy for him to make his runs. Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with Ken McInnes moving

[00:41:37] forward. Cause we've said he was pretty good off the bench. And we've also said that they had a good go forward with someone like Hazleton taking his place. So, I mean, if it's me, I'm not changing that winning feeling. It'd be interesting to see what the coach does. But I thought both, I thought, yeah, I thought McKeers was good off the bench. And I thought that, as you said, like we steamrolled them the first 20, like we should have been up by more and shouldn't have let them back in the game.

[00:42:04] But the fact Braley ran so much was all because of the forwards. And the fact that he didn't last week was all because of the forwards too. Hmm. Well, I was sort of prepared at halftime, mate. I was sort of prepared to have a little gripe at full time with you that it seems in these tight games, we can't seem to get the, get over the weaker teams in the tight games. What are we going to do when they're tight against the big teams? But yeah, I was glad, I was glad,

[00:42:33] I was glad I only had to say that to you in a different manner, I guess. I don't know what's going to happen. Like, I really don't. Like I don't, I can't promise you that in week one of the finals, they're going to lift with everyone else. Cause the whole cliche is, it's not even a cliche. It's like the whole storyline is what next level is a team going to get to week one, week two, week three, week four. And I can't tell you where we're going to go. Like I, I have no idea, but they're going to have to lift.

[00:43:01] And I kind of feel like I'd have to look it up for, you know, evidence-based, but I feel like the bigger the team, the better we, we at least sort of rise to the challenge. We may not win the game, but we kind of play better against bigger teams of the way. Yeah. So I'm hoping that'll be the case. We've got the eels next week. Honestly, I'm going one week at a time because if we lose one, one of the next two, you would think we won't finish fourth,

[00:43:30] but if we can win the next two, there is a strong chance that we'll finish fourth. You know, you've got to hope the Roosters who are currently losing to the Tigers get their act together and beat the dolphins. So it's not a given, but that's our only hope. So I'm going with that. As, as we said last week, it's out of our hands. Now we need other teams to do us a favor or fall over to get there. But yeah, it's, it's critical. Am I confident of us even making grand final? Probably not. Uh, winning it, but,

[00:44:00] um, yeah, finals football is finals football, mate. And if you want to be in the grand final, well, almost always you've got to finish in that top four. Um, yeah. The other thing I noticed this week was, uh, and it scares me sometimes when, that backs to the wall kind of thing. Um, siege mentality. I heard Nico in the press saying, well, yeah, Andrew Johns had a, had a big dig at us and our performance and our ability to go on and win it. We, uh, we love that. We stand up.

[00:44:29] So if we don't care what other people think. Yeah. It always scares me when I hear Nico pipe up like that, because I feel like, I feel like we've got a shocker performance in us straight after something like that. But yeah, again, it's good to see we came out, came out with the, with the cookies. Absolutely. Hey, stats, I'm going to let you go. Cause we've got Scotty calling from a long way away, but, um, I appreciate you calling in great to chat as always. Keep it up and, uh, enjoy the wind, my friend. Good yarn, buddy. See ya. Thanks. That's a stats from Perth.

[00:44:59] And now I'm going to bring in Scotty. Scotty, you'll have to remind me where are you living right now? Uh, I live in a country town in South Korea called Wonju. That's it. South Korea. How you going, my friend? What's going on? Uh, being gone pretty good, Sam, just, you know, lamenting about the game and, you know, the tale of two halves basically. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me what you, tell me what you saw. Tell me your thoughts. Uh,

[00:45:28] I thought in the first half we were a bit too rushed. Um, I thought our discipline wasn't really there. We're giving away too many six agains, uh, a few too many penalties. Um, no real starch in our defense. Um, but the attack just wasn't clicking. Um, it was good to see Braley running a lot more, um, than what he did last week. I thought, you know, we're getting quick play balls, getting out,

[00:45:57] but there was no real support around him. Um, and then come the second half, you know, we finally clicked into gear once Sifa really started to come up. Yeah. He, he did a lot of hard running for Noah Blake, came back on, backed him up. Um, so we really took control there, which, you know, something we've struggled to do once we lost that momentum the last few weeks, it was hard for us to get it back,

[00:46:26] but we got it back and we really plied the pressure to the Titans. Um, you know, and was able to put on four tries, which, you know, led us to victory, but then we fell off that last 10 minutes, which I thought was a bit disappointing. I thought we could have tried to put on another two or three more tries. Yeah. And that sort of thing may come in handy in a couple of weeks when we're looking at four and against, not sure how close it'll get with that,

[00:46:56] but you can never be too safe, but, uh, yeah, you don't want to concede. Like I thought what we were, we were up at, uh, what was it? It was bear with me. We were winning 30 to, to 16 basically. And then let them in with a try in the 75th. Um, so yeah, not a great way to end, but I think, I think what we need to also look at Scotty is the fact that we were down by, by eight points at halftime. It was 16, eight.

[00:47:26] Uh, we were all kind of not happy and we're all, you know, based on the past two weeks, we had no other option, but to fear the worst. Um, you've heard the stat only once before this game, we came back from a halftime deficit this year. So I like those things. I think it shows some character. I don't know if that's going to take you through to a grand final and lift the trophy, but at this point of, of the year, after what we've seen the past two weeks, I'm happy with that, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

[00:47:56] Uh, now look, a lot of people have been criticizing, uh, the two replacements. Tell me what you thought as respectfully as you can, uh, Nephi Peru and my Winnie Harati. I thought Harati had one of his better games, uh, in his hit ups. He was running with a bit more, I guess, gusto. He, he, low last week. Every time he would sort of get into a bit of space, he was,

[00:48:25] he was cut down after about 10 meters. I thought this time he, he was running a bit more harder. Um, with Peru, he, he played the role perfectly. He didn't try to be the superstar. Um, he, he basically just played the, the helping hand to Nico and just help and set everything up. So I thought he played really well. He didn't try to overdo it too much. Okay.

[00:48:54] That's good. That's good. So you're happy to roll forward. You're not looking for vast, big changes or. No, I'd still probably prefer Gabriel. Give Gabriel a shot in the centers. Yep. Um, but at the end of the day, I thought the, the starting lineup and the bench rotation was pretty good. I thought Cam is a lot better coming off. Yeah. And have less minutes. Um,

[00:49:24] I thought Siffa, he needs to get a few more minutes out there. Maybe take a little bit off Tom. Um, because he was running with a, a lot more venom. Yeah. I know he's coming back from that bicep injury. So though, it isn't in last week, but I think leading into the next two weeks, um, give him a bit more so he can really test those lungs. And I thought for Noah Blake's second stint, um,

[00:49:53] probably the best he's played all year. Yeah. Yeah. I think without getting too dramatic, it might be his best sort of stint at the club. Like, it was definitely game changing. And if you think about it, Scotty, like if we lose today, I mean, that is season done. I'm not suggesting, as I said, we're necessarily going to lift the trophy, but at least we're still in the hunt to kind of get to a place where you might be able to do something. But if you lose today, especially in the circumstances of the Titans up there,

[00:50:22] it wouldn't have been pretty. And he almost, I know there were other guys who had great games, but I almost felt like him and Talakai put the team on their shoulders. And that's what AFB is getting paid for. So I was really happy to see that. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're paying him, you know, what million a year to be that, you know, that impact forward, that leader that we need for the forwards. I thought Talakai really backed him up well. Oh yeah. You know,

[00:50:50] so those two in combination together on the field were, you know, getting us those extra meters that we were struggling to do in the first half. Yeah. And I thought Braley's running was a lot better than last week. I felt he really tried to make up for last week, take control of, you know, of our attack, get it going forward, quick play the balls and that. So I thought, you know,

[00:51:18] the whole team played well in the second half. It just took a bit of time to gel and click. Yeah, absolutely. So are you going game by game? How are you living this life? Scotty, you just thinking about the eels now, what are you doing? Yeah. Thinking about the eels and how the roosters play the dolphins next week. Um, that's, that's the two I'm looking at. And then we've got to look at the storm because,

[00:51:48] yeah, the storm don't have anything to play for, but they like to upset teams that do have something to play for. So, um, um, it's not often you say that about the storm, but yeah, that last game of the year is a bit scary for us. So next Saturday, 29th of August, 5 30 PM roosters dolphins at Allianz, which, which helps us because we want the dolphins to lose. Um,

[00:52:17] so that's 24 hours before we play. So we're going to know what's going on. We play at four o'clock the next day in regards to the storm game. You're a hundred percent correct there. And what I'm thinking about, even though I, I mean, I'm not lying to you. I am going one game at a time, but obviously your mind drifts. And I'll tell you what we've seen, and I'm sure you've seen it from where you're living. The new mural of the, um, of Andrew's feet are putting the try down.

[00:52:46] There's beautiful art in the ocean protect stadium, wherever I can see it. Um, I'm telling you right now, and it's old boys day premiership reunion day. Everyone's going to be there. Craig Bellamy is going to be reminding them of the pain they went through in 2016. Craig Bellamy is going to be in their grill. They might bring in a Billy Slater or someone or whoever, someone from that era to talk about losing about that grand final. And, and,

[00:53:15] and I'm telling you right now, that's going to be their motivation. The motivation will be that. And kind of having, you know, one last hurrah for the year, going out with a bang. Mad Monday starts early at Northies or whatever, but they're going to have almost as much motivation from that losing a grand final to us winning a grand final and us trying to make the top four. Like they're going to be ready to roll us. I think we can beat them. I'm not, I'm not overly worried, but they're definitely turning up to play. Definitely.

[00:53:46] I definitely agree with that. Like, I don't think he needs to really bring anybody in because if we remember, Ken Munster played in that game. There you go. So he's got some playing. He lost that grand final. You know, so he's definitely going to try and get them up to, you know, try, try and disrupt our, our final prep. But yeah, yeah. I feel like we can beat the storm.

[00:54:15] Like I'm always confident we can win. Yeah. Against any team. You know, Penrith does give me the, you know, the heebie jeebies, but you know, if we do put in a better performance defensively, we can always win. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Good point. The other thing that I, I would say I'm slightly concerned with is if the sharks current team puts in the same emotion that like,

[00:54:43] we're all going to put in for that storm game, I'm already a little bit worried about week one finals and what kind of condition we're going to be. And so I'm sort of hoping it's hard. It's hard. Cause you want, you hear, you hear, you know, critics and experts saying you want to go in with a hard game, go into the finals, a hard game. It's like, okay, if that's what you say, but you don't want to be too hard and you don't want to be too soft. So I'm looking for like a, probably not a game like today,

[00:55:10] but I'm looking for like a 24 to six win where there's no injuries and no suspensions. And it's not really the grind and we just get through it and we move on, but it may be a case of us needing to win. Well, it will be probably a case of us. If, if, if top falls on the line, we're going to have to win that game. So yeah, it's going to be interesting. We're in interesting times, my friend, very interesting times. It definitely is. You know, we're two games away from now from the finals.

[00:55:39] And I guess it comes down to, to fate. And next week, see what happens. You know, we have to win all three games. The Dolphins lose one. Um, and then I guess it comes down to four and against at the moment. I think we're about 40 points in front of the Dolphins. So that's a good thing that we have. We are 74. Oh, sorry. Sorry.

[00:56:09] You're right. We're about, about 50, about 50 points. Yes. Yeah. Oh, actually, you know what? You know what? I don't know what I'm looking at here. We're about, about 30, about 30 points. Yeah. 30 points. Yeah. That's a good thing that we've got, you know, coming into that last, last round. If we are level on points with the Dolphins, that 66 nil flogging that we gave them. Oh, yeah,

[00:56:38] definitely gave us a good, healthy four and against. Now I can tell you the Roosters are now 12 wall against the Tigers. You think they will, I'm not watching the game, but you think they might go on with it. And they're going to want to win the minor premiership. So I'm thinking they're not going to rest too many next week because they always go hard against the South Sydney Rabbitohs in round 27. There was suggestions they might rest people next week. I don't think they're in that position now.

[00:57:07] We are really hoping for that Dolphins loss, but then we're also, we've got to win two games. So it's, it's one of those situations that we didn't want to be in, but we are, we've got to face reality. And yeah, I just thought today they showed enough character for me, Scotty, that I haven't given up hope. I thought they showed enough character there. Yeah. It looked like a warm day. The conditions were good, but look, you know, it didn't look good. If you're feeling a bit tired and behind by eight points, they got their groove on,

[00:57:37] ended up winning fairly comfortably. And a lot to work on both positively and negatively positively. I'd keep doing the AFB thing, the SIFA thing, simple offloads. They were backing up each other really good. And what I'd work on would probably be that. I think it's the right edge defense. And I love the fact that they were attacking the ball in the air, Scotty. Um,

[00:58:05] they just did everything this week with a little bit more passion than the past two weeks. And we need to keep doing that more and more, get to the finals and roll. But unfortunately we've got two games to get to, get there, my friend. Yeah, I definitely agree. The, the passion was there. Um, especially, you know, the, some of the kick chasing the last few weeks,

[00:58:34] I'd expect from the sharks girls team. Um, I don't know if you can say that, but okay. No, because for me, that's one of the biggest issues I've had with, with the girls team. I know they've got a lot of injuries, but the first few weeks, the kick chase was not really. Gotcha. Uh, consistent. You can say that. I thought you were going down a different route. You can say that for sure. Gotcha. No, but this week they definitely put in a lot more effort. They weren't. Yeah.

[00:59:02] I know I saw from when I was watching every time they put up a high kick, if they knew they weren't going to get there against Kenny, they would come up in a line, um, which is what they needed to do to shut him down. Um, but when they got close enough, I had a few times that he went up and got the ball. Um, something we hadn't seen like last week, he was, you know, two seconds too early, uh, against the dragons.

[00:59:33] Yeah. They were like five seconds too late. So, you know, it was getting that timing, right, which I felt, you know, the kicking game was quite good. Um, um, it also helped having a left footed kicker with Puru. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I, but they go to short side and put in the kick. Yeah. We weren't losing much momentum. The boys didn't have to stop on their chase before he kicked it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[01:00:03] I was just, you just reminded me of the, um, the disallowed Nico try as well, which would have been a great try. He was unfortunately about half a foot in front of, uh, the kicker, but, um, when Puru started kicking regularly, I was like, Oh yeah. Okay. I don't know about this, but I'm glad someone else is doing it. But then I was reminded his boots actually not too bad. And the fact that he's a left footer, as you say, it just made things a lot more. I don't know if it was easier for the team, but from us watching on TV,

[01:00:32] it looked a lot more natural. It didn't look as rushed. It didn't look like he was going to be charged down or the ball was going to go out. It looked very natural. So that, that was a, that was a welcome change. Yeah. Um, it's always good having that extra help. I know last week, Nico really struggled. Yeah. Cause they were putting a lot of pressure on him. Um,

[01:00:57] I think Puru this week was just waiting and I think he got the okay to, you know, all right, we're going to go to you a bit more. Um, especially, you know, if, if we're close enough to that sideline, you put it up. Um, and then they'll go across to Nico, the other side. So I think that the two halves really complimented each other, you know, with their kicking, um, today. Yeah. And, uh, and I think our chase really helped this week. Um,

[01:01:28] I know towards the last 10 minutes, it slacked off a little bit. Um, but yeah, during the first half, especially in that first 30 minutes of the second half, they worked really hard to put pressure on, um, um, and their defense in those first two or three tackles after the kick were really good. Yeah. And the other positive thing is they come home probably tonight, or I would say definitely tonight,

[01:01:56] and they have a week to sort of work on things. And so they can look at what worked, look at what didn't work. But I think a guy like Nephi is going to improve on today with the more training he gets, the more reps he gets, and then the more game time he gets. And you can say that for the whole team. You could probably say it for Haradi as well, but for a guy like Nephi is in such an important position. I think that that's going to be really important because we don't know when Trindle's back up. They're talking, they're talking week one of the finals, which is awesome,

[01:02:26] but there's no guarantee on that. And we've got a lot to do before we get to that position anyway. So, so I think that things can only get better. I don't see us getting worse. Now we've got this win under our belt. And the interesting stat from, from Matty Russell on Fox was that this year we haven't lost a game when one of the spine members has been out. So we've got the usual guys in, we've lost a game or two. When someone's filled in, we haven't lost a game.

[01:02:54] So that was kind of a surprise and kind of relieving to know that. Yeah, it was, it was quite a surprise. Like when they said that, cause usually teams struggle if one of their main players is out. But I feel like when Poo has come in, he's really, as I said before, like he doesn't overplay his hand. Like he knows he's there. So he's not there to try and take control. Um,

[01:03:24] he's back up, you know, supporting plays is quite good. Um, as we saw today when built and made that break, pass it to him. Um, if he just had a bit more speed, you know, he probably would have scored. Um, but you know, he, he comes in, he knows that he's, you know, not the superstar. He's just helping there with Nico and, you know, helping make sure Nico's in the right place. Um, so he's not overdoing it. And every time,

[01:03:54] you know, they got to the last, you know, he would put in a good kick, you know? So the next few weeks, he builds up that combination with Nico next week, as you said, like they're going to work on it. They're going to get better. Yeah. Um, the week after that same thing, like they just keep working, clicking and eventually, you know, they do gel. Yeah. And then eventually Trindle will be back. So I'm assuming he'll be back ready to rock.

[01:04:21] And I'm assuming that he goes back to being what he, what he has been all year and not into some sort of shell. There's no reason why he would be, but if we can get him back to what he was like when he got injured in that eighth minute or whatever it was, we're looking a lot better, especially if Nephi and the boys can get the third victory by the Melbourne game. If there's no Trindle at that point, but, um, so yeah, interesting time, Scotty. How are you going over there? Everything all right over there where you are? Yeah, no,

[01:04:51] everything's going good here. It's, uh, starting to cool down now, which is good. And the last few weeks, it's been about 40 degrees, uh, and humid. So it's starting to cool down and, you know, work's been busy, um, and that's, so running the school. And after this, I'll get back to work and finish up the worksheets for the kids for next week. Okay. And you, any return home visits planned or depends on the footy team or?

[01:05:21] Yeah, it depends on the footy team. Um, um, and it's a little bit hard with, with work. Um, yeah, I'm sure. No, you know, it's our school, but the, um, I'm the main teacher. So, you know, the kids are coming to learn from me. So it's a bit hard to get back. Of course. Well, you can, you can teach them all about the black, white, and blue, you know, maybe on October 2nd or no October 4th this year. So maybe if you don't make it back, bit of a history lesson.

[01:05:51] Thanks for dialing in. Really appreciate it. Great to talk to you again. Thanks. It was good to chat to you as well, mate. Yeah. Always welcome. So don't be a stranger. Okay. No worries, man. I'll catch you next time. Thank you. That's Scotty. Thanks so much, Scotty, for calling in from so far away. Really appreciate it. I've got some more comments here. I don't know if I read this out before or not, but Mikey Mark said, what's the deal with big Felix? Is he available?

[01:06:21] So he played yesterday for the jets and was unbelievable. He was awesome. Is he a shark? I don't know if he's in the top 30. They can, they can make that stuff sort of happen, but I don't think they're going to rush him in this year, but I think out of all the guys, he's one of the guys that probably at the top of the list that we'll get on sooner rather than later in the years to come, but certainly a great talent. And he was awesome yesterday. For the jets. Danny says, Kofusi was good off the bench. McKinnis did a good job off the bench. Highlands played well in the second half.

[01:06:51] Ed said, not so good, but onto next week. Shake wrote, Heroti's problem isn't his runs, but his defensive decisions. Peter says, at least we've improved, which is great. Thanks to the leader in 67 for the update. I've got it here in front of me. 12 wall. It looks like Malcolm. I agree a thousand percent with you. All we need to do is win.

[01:07:21] And we did. Angela says, yo, win well against the decent team. Fair enough. Thanks Adam for the halftime score. Mark says, regarding Andrew Johns, even when we're in the top four, he was always saying top threes locked in for finals. He even said we were going to end up seventh this week. He's still smarting from a 64 to 14 loss. I like that talk. I like Joey.

[01:07:48] He just says things sometimes that before he thinks probably, but, but yeah, don't be dissing our boys. Now, our mates over on the Insta. What have I done with you all? Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Ms. Milgate has joined from Ultimo. She's a big Nico Hines person. My nephew has joined. Now our friend Claudia joined. She was at the game. I'm pretty sure Ben Harlem and neither of them have called in.

[01:08:19] So I find that very disappointing. Ali says, up, up. Thank you. This is style. So obviously first half was clunky. First game together for Hines and Peru though. Is that right? The first game. Well, then that's even better than that. They, they won the game. Delita girl regarding next week says the Eels always start hard and fast, but struggle late. We need to get off to a big lead. If we play it like the first half today, we won't win. I mean, they always have this kind of, I don't know. These,

[01:08:48] these chances the Eels to win games, they don't. So it's not a done deal, but I'd be disappointed if we don't win it. That's for sure. Sharkies win 30 to 22 against the Titans on the Gold Coast. Let's look at some of these numbers. The Sharks completed at 84%. So not too bad. It's pretty good. The Titans were at 86. That's also pretty good.

[01:09:15] There was 16 line breaks in the game and we made nine of them, nine to seven. We made more offloads. We ran more. We had way, way less missed tackles. So just under 30 missed tackles, which is, that's okay. I guess penalties were even. Even the set restarts. We dominated at 84. We made one more error than them, but yeah, overall,

[01:09:44] not a disappointing performance, really. When you look at the whole thing, let's look at some individual efforts here. Will Kennedy at the back, decent game, two try assists. So handy in attack. Steff with no errors. Sione Katoa. So negatively, he had one error, one missed tackle. Positively, he ran for 120 meters, busted 10 tackles, scored two tries, one which might've been the greatest of all time. KL era was immense.

[01:10:13] I thought over 200 run meters, five tackle bars, no missed tackles. So well done the KL era. Mulatalo was terrific with two tries, 150 run meters, five tackle bars, no missed tackles. Is that right? No. Two missed tackles. I apologize. Two missed tackles. Nephi, we spoke about. Nico Hines, two try assists. Ran for about seven minutes.

[01:10:43] 70 meters. Kicked 12 times for almost 500 meters. Very good second half from Nico. For newer Blake, what a game-changing experience he had second half. He ran overall for 130 meters. He busted eight tackles, made 27, didn't miss any. A line break assist for his cousin, Siffer. Blake Braley ran for about 70 meters. He also had a try assist,

[01:11:14] made 37 tackles, one chip and chase. It didn't go very well, but the thought was there. Kieran, her Monday show was messaging me saying, second tackle. And I was like, well, what can you, I don't know. Jesse Calhoun had a really good game, 100 meters, 33 tackles. Britton Nickera, so 70 meters, 30 tackles, three misses. Teague Wilton, 100 meters,

[01:11:43] 30 tackles, two misses. Tom Hazleton started the game, unofficially at lock. Sorry, officially at lock. Unofficially, I'm not sure where you'd call it. 100 meters, 30 tackles. All stats are kind of very similar today. Cam McKinnis off the bench, about 60 meters, one try, 17 tackles, no misses, one tackle turnover on Big Tino. Talakai, again, just, we've spoken about him immense. Kifusi was really good off the bench,

[01:12:13] as someone just said, it might have been Danny, about, what do we got here? Kifusi. Oh, so Kifusi stats, and they're not amazing, given the amount of minutes he was on. I'm looking at Billy Burns' numbers. He was decent, like 90 meters, five tackle bars, 17 tackles. So, overall, a good team performance to start the game, and definitely that second half as well. Now, Brendan has reminded me that

[01:12:43] NRL Dub is on really soon. It's like a shark fest. NRL W 615, Sharks versus the Eels at Ocean Protect Stadium. I know the girls are not having the season we'd all hoped for, but let's hope they can win tonight, and I think, good chance, Brendan. A lot of team changes. Let me just look at the team for you right now. It should be official. Thanks to the internet. That internet's still around, eh? Let's go. Women's Premiership. Some big scores today.

[01:13:13] We saw the Titans upset the Broncos. Shante Kiriarato is back. She's playing 5'8". Madison Ashby's playing half. So, she wasn't listed, Shante. So, that's positive. Jacinta Carter, who's one of my favorite players, she's playing prop. She started the game, and she deserves that. She's been unbelievable. So, Ellie Johnson, Quincy Dodd, Jacinta Carter. Rhiannon Byers returns. Kiriarato, the sister, Anne-Marie, is in the second row. And Taka Patolo is at lock.

[01:13:43] And there's a very big in off the bench, and I'm really excited. So, you've got Kofi Brickfield, the utility backup, Tegan Dimmick, having a great year, Caitlin Johnson Green, and Tarlay Holmes returns after giving birth in the offseason. She's back. That's super exciting. And I like to look at that team, so I wish them all the best. If you haven't listened to our podcast, please go do it. It's called, This Is How We Play. It's on all the Shark Cast feeds. It's got different artwork. It's called, This Is How We Play. So far,

[01:14:13] we have had, don't tell me, Madison Ashby. We have had China Pilata. We've had Quincy Dodd. And just the other day, we had Rhiannon Byers. She's making a comeback today. Check it out. It's a more informative piece than X's and O's. I think you'll really like it. It would mean the world to me if you just gave it a listen. End of spiel. Loosh from Melbourne. Says, Right. That was a difficult win to watch. Serious question for me, Sam.

[01:14:43] Do I cancel the accommodation I have booked for grand final weekend? Genuinely curious to hear everyone's thoughts. Fire out, Brussels Sprout. You ask tough questions. Can you wait until we see if we make the top four, maybe? If you make the top four, it's still going to be difficult given the form that we've shown. But if Trindle's back and we're fourth,

[01:15:12] then why can't we win week one? Oh, because we're playing Penrith, Roosters, Warriors. I take your point. I would hope that you have, I was about to say this. It's like we know each other so well. I was going to say, I hope you would have had the night before being the cutoff. But you're saying it's September 12th. That seems really out of the ordinary. Why don't you, I was going to say, why don't you book, to cancel that one, book another one, but find the cutoff date being October the 3rd.

[01:15:42] I don't know. I don't know, man. It's a lot of pressure for the podcaster to answer. What's the worst that happens? You come up to Cronulla and hang out. That's pretty good. Corey said that was scary, but stood up in the second half. Absolutely, they did. Oh, Jordan. I love this one. Where is he? You can't be happy with that shortly, Sam. So, at what part of the hour have I said I'm happy? I said there's things I like, things I didn't like. Tell me more about this question. I can't be happy. Does that mean you've just tuned in

[01:16:12] and you're asking if I'm happy? Or everything I've said in the last hour, you're saying, I am happy and I shouldn't be. Tell me what you're thinking, Jordan, because I don't really want to presume. Appreciate you writing in and I'll tell you what I think. The answer is, I'm happy with the two points. Absolutely ecstatic, over the moon. Performance, seven. Give it a seven maybe. And seven isn't going to take you very far in this world. So, that's where I'm at, my friend. Appreciate you.

[01:16:41] Loosh says, thanks, I'm no help at all. I get that a lot. I get that more than you might think. Probably not what others think. They probably assume that, but you, my friend, who seem to think I'm a nice enough person, I get it more than you think. Mark says, in regards to the current game that's on, at least the Roosters are having their rubbish game this week, so the coach will put a rocket up them for next week. So yeah, we needn't to lose next week to the Dolphins. The problem there is, Marky, Mark, we've still got to win our games. If only it was so easy to rely on a team to lose.

[01:17:12] We've got to rely on us to win. But you know what? I think we've all forgotten over the past two and a half weeks how we can be a decent team. We can be a good team. At times, we're a great team. I wouldn't say that we're a great team today, to answer Jordan's question. I think that at parts of the game, we were good. The parts we need to be in, we were good. We came back from an eight-point deficit at halftime. We don't usually do that. We turned it around. We're going to face tougher teams

[01:17:41] starting next week against the Eels than what we saw today. I mean, I don't think that, I think the Eels will probably be a tougher team. I do at Parra than what the Gold Coast were today. Pete says, it's 16-12 now to the Tigers. Thanks, Pete. It'll be some win if they get it. I know we're a little bit away from full time, but it's a bit of fun. Now, Sharks win, 30-22. Appreciate everyone tuning in, jumping on, having your say. Had some people call in. That's awesome.

[01:18:12] We will get more episodes to you throughout the week. It's business end of the year. A few things going on, so not sure when the Kieran episode will be. That's more on me than him. But, that'll be the next one off the rank, I would think. Tuesdays, we do the live stream in the afternoon. And that, that, believe it or not, is not about team lists. It's more about just having a chat about the Sharks. If you ever want to have a chat about the Sharks in the comment section, jump on the 4 o'clock stream. It always turns into a podcast later on. Loosh said, last week,

[01:18:42] I said, good teams win messy games. That was very messy, very difficult to watch, but we found a way. That's a good sign. I agree. I agree. I didn't think it was very difficult to watch, except for maybe like, five to ten minutes. I thought if they score one more, it's not so good. I thought when Nico had his try disallowed, not so good. But we've got the job done. Marky Mark says, if we do what we did in the second half with the forwards, we'll be good. Copy and paste. Love it.

[01:19:11] Let's go. Love it. Love it. Love it. It's going to be a strange couple of weeks, guys. Jordan's replied. Thanks, Jordan. He said, what I meant was you have to be worried about these inconsistencies we're seeing every week. We haven't been good for three weeks now. Yeah, absolutely, man. And thanks for clarifying that. Did not like what I saw. Let's sort of put some minutes on it here. Let's say, Jordan, let's say, yeah, we started well,

[01:19:39] but I think after the second try for us, the first Katoa try, yeah, probably like what the last 10 to 15 minutes of the first half was not good. But we got back into it as soon as the first sort of five, 10 minutes of the second half. So I know a better team would do more of a job on you than what the Titans did. So I completely understand that side of things. I think they need to work on what they do when they're leading a game. They seem to get the hippie,

[01:20:09] hippie shakes when they're leading. So they're leading eight, four, and it's looking a bit better. And then all of a sudden it's 16, eight. So it's like, well, what's going on here? So if we can tighten that up, Jordan, I think it'll go a long way. My biggest concerns at the moment, probably the right edge defense with, with Britain, with Marwini and with Katoa. And it's not one individual. It's sort of them together.

[01:20:38] But I thought today was better than last week. And last week is probably better than the week before. You know what I mean? So maybe there's some improvement there. Other than that, I think when the passes stick, we're a pretty good team. The first half, the passes weren't sticking. You know, Bradley was having bad passes. passes. Marwini had some bad passes. I'm not sure if Hines had bad passes, but he dropped a few. So our spine was sort of not going well, but you could see if they stuck,

[01:21:07] we probably would have scored some points. We left two or three tries out there. I think the score line does flatter them a little bit. So at this point, Jordan, I'm just going game for game and I've got to win every game that I play. So I'm going to beat the Eels and we move on to the storm, but I'll beat the storm, move on to the finals. That's how we got to do it. Hope you're good. Sammy from Canberra says, I'm so proud of the boys. Got the job done. They cheered you up and you yelled louder.

[01:21:36] That win was for you and all Sharks fans enjoying the Corral song. Thanks, Sammy. Hope you're good down in Canberra. Keep me warm at least. So Sharks win 30 to 22. We like that. We like that. We like that a lot. We have the Eels next week. We have the Eels tonight at 6pm at Ocean Protect Stadium. Get down to the stadium if you can. We have the NRL Eels next week, Sunday, four o'clock.

[01:22:05] And then Saturday week, I guess it'll be. 7.30 kickoff against Melbourne. Grab a ticket if you want to go. It's going to sell out. Loosh said, not sure if you've covered this, but thoughts on Haradi. A few bad passes, but he seemed to be in a different gear to the rest of the team. You could tell he was struggling to keep up with the first choice spine. Oh, he meant, you're killing me. He meant Puru. Okay.

[01:22:34] So you're talking about Puru keeping up with the, with the rest of the guys. We've sort of discussed it a bit. Yeah. We've discussed him throughout the show. Go back and have a listen later on. But I thought, yeah, he had a slow start. Some of those passes were a bit weird. Some of the catches were a bit weird. He looks a bit rusty, but I thought second half on was completely fine. I thought he kicked well. Defense was a lot better. I think maybe he was in a few sort of try causes, but not specifically one-on-one. So that was a positive.

[01:23:04] His defense isn't 10 out of 10, but it's probably not as bad as what others make out to be as well. So I thought he looked, it did look a bit like, Oh, what's going on here? I concede that. Absolutely. My friend, but I thought second half made up for it. And the team got better. He got better. I thought he was let down a little bit by some of the guys in that, when he was making those errors, but some of it was on him too. Absolutely. Thank you, Loosh. So that's, what's going on. Not sure about what happens if we finish fifth or six,

[01:23:33] that info trickle out over the next couple of weeks. It'll heat up probably leading into the sharks home game against Melbourne. Don't want to speculate. Of course we go through it every year. I've told you 35 times this year, I want to play at ocean protect stadium just to annoy everyone else, but we'll see what happens. It depends on the opponent as well. I think if we play a bit of, if we do a bit of fantasy booking, as Loosh would say,

[01:24:03] we're in fifth spot. We play North Queensland currently if, if the final started today. So we saw one game against them at home and the other game was at the SFS. Although I think that might've been a week to game. Yeah. So anyway, but my point being the teams we'd play at ocean protect stadium, it would have to be a low drawing crowd.

[01:24:30] So you really only looking at potentially the dolphins, potentially, and potentially the Cowboys. Everyone else is a pretty big fan base and they probably wouldn't allow it. Lucy saying not a finals game of the Bermuda triangle again. I saw a bit of a doco on Netflix on the Bermuda triangle. I started it. I didn't get through it cause it wasn't very good, but it was very much like ocean protect stadium. Sharks win. We're relieved.

[01:24:59] Not everyone's happy, but we're relieved. I'm going to turn this into a podcast for you later on. You can listen to it on all your streams. You can go back and watch it on all your socials that it's on right now. It'll be on our website, chartcast.com.au. And we're going to have shows for you throughout the week. So a bit of a crazy week last week. This week is going to look less crazy. I hope we still had things out there. Hopefully you all consumed it.

[01:25:27] I wasn't able to keep up on the socials and that kind of thing. So make sure you tune into, or if you've still got time, go down to ocean protect stadium and the women's team is going to play against the eels. I'm going to wrap it up. So if no one else has anything further to say, Mark says, see you Tuesday. Yes, you will. So Mark is referring to the team was Tuesday where we do a live stream. So we usually do live streams for post game and Tuesdays. Occasionally we'll throw something else up,

[01:25:55] but they're the two mainstays and you have the opportunity to come on and have your say on the post game. You call in on the Tuesdays. It's more just chat like this with the comments and you throw it all up. As I said, it's not just about analyzing a team list. It's just about having a chat about the team. We base it around the team list, but obviously we're just here to talk about the sharks. So please join us if you can. And more, the more the merrier. And the same goes with sharing the pod around.

[01:26:25] I always sound so desperate, but it's only because I want to keep growing. I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate everyone. I cannot tell you enough how much the podcast has grown week on week from day one through to like this week. It just keeps growing. So that's awesome, right? It's positive, but I just want to keep growing. That's, that's why I'm always pitching to you guys and girls to do this, do that. Cause we just keep on growing. The bigger we get, the better for everyone, including myself.

[01:26:55] And that's what we're doing. Mark says, oh, you said, yep. So gotcha. Mark said, see you Tuesday. Luke says in two weeks time, we'll be sharing some whiskey. Ooh, I like whiskey. How did you know? Grungemaster Fuzz says, did anyone watch Yarrawara versus D? That was a fun match. The chat and the Yarraw got the win. Stuart Mills is playing prop. What the heck's going on? I didn't get to watch that one. Hopefully I'll get to watch some highlights from chatty.

[01:27:24] Malcolm says, thank you. Good win. Absolutely. Malcolm. Malcolm says, enjoy what's left of the weekend. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. You too. And we'll get out of here. Appreciate everyone. Everyone enjoy the rest of this game.

[01:27:53] No matter who you're going for. And we'll get out of here. We'll go out with a bit of a song. Cause we like music on this show. And just to do a little graphic, it says posts game shows coming up. Cause obviously we're just going to finish up up. Up, up Cronulla. We won. We are still alive and we're all still alive. So let's be thankful for that. Up, up. Let's go. Up,

[01:28:23] up. up.

[01:29:57] SharkCast is supported by the best and most honest real estate agent in the Sutherland Shire, Jason Hawes from Crips and Crips Real Estate. He's an expert in the Caringbara region and has his eye all across the Shire. Lifelong Sharks fan and supporter of this podcast. If you're looking to buy or sell in the region, the person you need to be talking to is Jason Hawes from Crips and Crips Real Estate. Call him on 0410 417 450. That's 0410 417 450.

[01:30:27] Jason Hawes, Crips and Crips Real Estate.