Match Details
Match Date	27th May, 2017
Opponent	Cronulla
Result	Loss 8-9
Coach	Des Hasler
Captain	James Graham
Venue	Endeavour Field (Southern Cross Group Stadium)
Crowd	20,497
Referee	Ben Cummins Gavin Badger

NRL dead during State of Origin? Just ask 20,497 people, wearing all different shades of blue and not worried in the slightest about a decade of interstate doom and gloom.

A sellout at Shark Park when seven of the best weren’t there. Who woulda thunk it?

The crowds might not be dead, but creativity is. Or was for the most part. There was no lack of intent. No lack of intensity. No lack of impact. Just a lack of ingenuity.

And that’s what happens when almost half of Laurie Daley’s side is sitting at Kingscliff rather than running out underneath King Wan.

But two men who might have – maybe should have – been worried about Origin on Wednesday night combined to lift the Sharks to an improbable win over the Bulldogs on Saturday night after Chad Townsend’s 78th minute field goal.

Yet that told little of the story.

Whether you agree with his perhaps tongue-in-cheek view he is still playing well enough to warrant selection for NSW if he was available, Paul Gallen makes a compelling case.

An impossible retrieval to deny a line dropout, followed by a weaving run from Valentine Holmes and a Gerard Beale dash on the next play produced a 100-metre, three-play try that levelled the scores inside the last 15 minutes. It was all down to the skipper. And then a trademark fifthtackle charge put Townsend in range with just two minutes left.

But regrets about not being available for the Blues? Gallen insists he has none. ‘‘I haven’t missed the week, to be honest,’’ the Sharks captain said after the match. ‘‘I’ll miss the game. I still take a bit of pride in that NSW side – bar Nathan Peats, I’ve had something to do with everyone there.’’

Sharks coach Shane Flanagan added: ‘‘They were two really big plays in particular he pulled off for us. Having Gal back during this period ... we got something out of him tonight, that’s for sure.’’

On this evidence it won’t be the last time a sellout is chalked up at Southern Cross Group Stadium. Remarkably, they made it the biggest home crowd for the Sharks since the local derby against the Dragons in 2012. And Gallen didn’t let them down.

The Sharks were missing James Maloney, Andrew Fifita, Wade Graham and Jack Bird to Origin – yet still their skipper was attracting more NSW-related headlines given his concession he might have played on had he known the Sharks would have won last year’s premiership. And he tore into the Bulldogs forward pack like a man possessed.

After Holmes booted the Sharks to an early lead, there was plenty of punch yet little poise when it mattered as the host of Origin absentees eventually told in the red zones.

To his credit Townsend pillaged repeat set after repeat set, but still couldn’t find the magic bullet when it mattered.

His opposite Moses Mbye found his though. In truth the Bulldogs’ first try was little to do with the polarising No.7, but his early ball at least set Brenko Lee free to dip into his bag of tricks and as he sliced through from close range. Advantage Bulldogs.

The Sharks found a little more inspiration after the break, but still couldn’t breach a sterner Bulldogs wall. Debutant Francis Tualau clawed Jayden Brailey back from the line and Sosaia Feki was scrambled into touch with the try line beckoning.

And while they couldn’t engineer something deep in Bulldogs territory, their first significant incursion started behind their own try line with a man who defies father time.

He made little metres then, a few more before the field goal and will make plenty more into the future. At least for as long as he wants to.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

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