Cronulla coach Peter Sharp has declared his shoddy Sharks are miles away from a win following their fourth straight defeat to start the 2014 season.
Having been toppled 30-0 by an emotion-charged Newcastle outfit on Sunday, Sharp was philosophical in outlining the toothless Sharks' mission as they head towards a Round 5 showdown with the New Zealand Warriors.
“Try and win a game next week – that’s where we go. It’s not ideal but it is what it is and we need to try and win,” Sharp said.
“We’re miles away at the moment in a lot of departments in my opinion – maybe not in everybody’s opinion but in my opinion. We are very patchy in our games.
“We have to get over those hurdles. Certainly parts of our game and parts of our play weren’t acceptable by our standards.”
While the Sharks haven’t had the greatest of runs in terms of the casualty ward – with internationals Paul Gallen, Luke Lewis and Anthony Tupou currently on the sideline – Sharp emphasised that was no excuse.
“You've just got to win games. No matter who’s out, who’s in or who’s playing or how you lose or how you win – you've got to win football games and we’re not doing that at the moment,” Sharp said.
“We need to work hard and stick together and solve our problems and try to come up with a win.”
Stand-in captain Wade Graham couldn’t hide his disappointment at his team's performance, adding he and other fellow senior players needed to lead by example.
“We need to sit down in a group and ask each other some tough questions and we’ve got to take more accountability as players as to how we perform,” Graham said.
“You know myself, Toddy [Todd Carney], Andrew Fifita – we weren’t good enough today and with the troops that are missing we have to lead from the front and if we’re not doing that we’re not doing a good enough job and we can’t expect anyone else to do so.”
