The Sharks held the Dragons scoreless to record a 12-nil win in a fast-and-furious encounter at Toyota Stadium back in Round 6.
Cronulla drew first blood with just six minutes gone after Colin Best sliced through some flimsy Dragons defence near halfway. The centre linked with winger John Williams who streaked down the left sideline before throwing a well-judged pass infield to Jeff Robson who found John Morris with the final pass for a 6-nil scoreline.
Thereafter the teams ran each other ragged with end-to-end action, with neither side blinking until the 57th minute when Wade Graham out-enthused the Dragons to be first to a Robson fifth-tackle grubber kick that barely made it into the in-goal.
Cronulla owed their victory to some expansive second-phase play, with 19 offloads tallied on the evening helping them to a 4-2 advantage in the line-breaks count.
Incredibly the Dragons churned out more territory, their 1643 metres 39 metres more than the home side managed – although the Red V had a decidedly off night with their defence, tallying a season-high 42 missed tackles.
Sharks captain Paul Gallen’s stats were truly phenomenal – 29 hit-ups for 215 metres with 41 tackles and five offloads – while Robson added two try assists.
Daniel Vidot was among the best of the beaten bunch, making 161 metres, a line-break and four tackle-breaks, while prop Michael Weyman was similarly strong with 143 metres and two offloads.
