Hobbled Sharks sweat on Woods scans

Cronulla will be sweating on scan results with fears Aaron Woods could be out for an extended period after suffering a possible fractured foot in Saturday night's 24-12 loss to Parramatta at ANZ Stadium.

Woods hobbled from the field early in the second half with the help of a Sharks trainer and left the ground in a moon boot with scans to confirm the injury in coming days.

Sharks coach John Morris indicated the initial thoughts around the injury were not positive.

"He felt something pop when he passed the ball," Morris said.

"We've got to get it checked and scanned. We can't take any luck at the moment.

"They need to rule out a fracture. He's in a boot and on crutches, so it's not a good sign."

It capped off a horror night for the Sharks who lost playmaker Shaun Johnson an hour before the game with quad tightness, while Josh Dugan struggled for most of the clash with a head knock and a lower back issue.

Rising playmaker Kyle Flanagan was given little notice to replace Johnson before taking the field.

"Literally before warm-up, our side has already gone in, and Shaun had some tightness in his quad," Morris said.

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"It wasn't responding well to treatment and we just couldn't risk him. Kyle just literally found out then, lucky we had him as 18th man.

"It was one of those ones where he goes from thinking he's no chance of playing to be throwing a jumper. I thought he did well considering that preparation. It's pretty hard to find out you're playing literally 10 minutes before we warm up."

Morris was hopeful Johnson would be available for the side's mouth-watering clash with the Roosters next week, while skipper Paul Gallen is also likely to return from a rib injury.

The Sharks remained in the arm wrestle until a Michael Jennings try with seven minutes remaining sealed the 12-point result for Parramatta.

"I'm really proud of them, they kept coming against a really powerful team that had a lot more ball than us in the first half and took a bit more juice out of us," Morris said.

"We couldn't cover the loss of Woodsy and no Shaun Johnson and no Matt Moylan took its toll when we were attacking their line, we looked a little bit lost.

"Nothing we can't fix and we'll bounce back. Hopefully we get Shaun and Gal back next week."