“They’re the better parts of the week and job,” Fitzgibbon said. “A local junior who grew up a Sharks fan sitting on the hill … he would have dreamed of doing that one day.
“The most important thing was he performed and the try was the icing on the cake. It was a big arvo,a childhood dream.”
Fitzgibbon agreed it was Cronulla’s most complete performance of the year as they raced to 24-0 lead at half-time and then went on with the job after the break,with Braydon Trindall and Ronaldo Mulitalo finishing with doubles.
Nicho Hynes had a perfect day with the boot,landing all seven conversion attempts,while fullback Will Kennedy won the Paul Green Medal named in honour of the late representative player and coach who had ties to both clubs.
By contrast,it was an afternoon to forget for the Cowboys,who appeared to give up the ghost when Mulitalo ran around from the wing to put the ball down untouched with his first try.
“It’s not a good feeling,” coach Todd Payten said. “In those moments I like to see who’s fighting or who’s making the effort to[make him] put the ball down further wide.”
Payten’s side led the competition after the first few weeks,but left Sydney for the second straight week with most people questioning their top eight credentials,let alone premiership hopes.
Asked whether he would consider making changes for the visit of three-time premiers Penrith,Payten said:“I will be looking at it,yeah. Absolutely.
“We’ve got to shift our attitude towards tackling and defending. If we’ve got 100 per cent of energy,I said this to the boys inside,we’re putting 65 to 70 per cent of it into our attack. It should be at least 50-50 and the good teams will go 60-40 to defence knowing they will get that energy back,whether it’s two or three sets later,or the back end of each half.
“Until we shift that mentality,we’ll still be having this conversation.”