Nicho Hynes ultimately wasn’t the man for the match-winning moment, but Craig Fitzgibbon was keen to shift blame away from the halfback after his missed sideline conversion after the siren in the 30-28 loss to the Dolphins.
Wayne Bennett’s side blew out to an early first half lead thanks to four tries inside the first 24 minutes, only for Fitzgibbon’s team to impressively fight back to lead after 52 minutes.
A piece of Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow magic broke the Sharks defence and looked to almost certainly gift the Dolphins the two points, only for a late Sione Katoa try to give Hynes a chance to send the game to extra time.
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Hynes, who needed a big game to keep his Origin hopes alive, missed from the sideline, but Fitzgibbon was quick to defend his halfback in his post-game press conference.
“It’s unfair to put it (the loss) on a goal kicker when we gave up 22 points in the first half,” Fitzgibbon said.
“The answers (for the loss) lie in our defensive line in the first half.”
Fitzgibbon said there were many factors behind his side’s slow start, including a five-day turnaround from his side’s bruising Round 14 win over the Brisbane Broncos and their loss to the Dolphins, but failed to make excuses for how they performed.
Fitzgibbon on Hynes’ cruel late miss | 05:11
“There’s no excuses (for the slow start). There’s heaps of reasons (for it),” he said.
“We worked hard on not allowing anything to creep in. No excuses, just turn up, get your energy right and spark it.
“Unfortunately we didn’t get that done to start and then (we) got it going, but it was too late.
“(There was) clearly a bit of a hangover at the start. We just looked numb in defence. Then got ourselves to a point where it looked awful, and then did something about it.
“I was really pleased with the second half and we just had one moment with the Hammer. Game over.”
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Fitzgibbon believes the Dolphins, who came into this clash fresh from last week’s bye, were more energized than Cronulla, particularly in the game’s opening stages.
“You could tell they’d arrived to play. We weren’t energetic enough to get it done,” he said.
In his mind, the points the Sharks conceded at the start of the game was only half of the problem with his side’s slow start.
“Take away the points and the cost of energy at the start of the game was too much to overcome,” Fitzgibbon said.
Cronulla have the bye in Round 16 with their coach admitting his side “could do with some rest,” however he was adamant they’ve “got some work to do.”