Sharks face huge task to hit back in NRL
How do Cronulla recover from the longest NRL match in 12 years and try and back it up for a do-or-die semi-final in just seven days time?
It's the question Sharks coaching staff must spend Sunday trying to answer, after going toe-to-toe with North Queensland for 92 minutes and 25 seconds before being beaten by a two-point Valentine Holmes field goal.
For more than two hours on Saturday, the Sharks and Cowboys tried to belt each other into submission, in a titanic and at times fiery 32-30 affair at PointsBet Stadium.
"It's the best fitness session we'll have this year," Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon quipped afterwards.
Now the Sharks must turn up next Saturday against the winners of South Sydney and the Sydney Roosters where the losers can pack their bags and start Mad Monday.
"We'll be right," Fitzgibbon said.
"Because it's sudden death.
"We'll wash it off, we'll do what we have to do and we'll be right to go."
Still, the Sharks will only be able to look at their defence for the reason why they find themselves in this predicament.
After basing the back-end of their year around the best defensive record of any side in the second half of a regular season in 14 years, it went missing at times.
They allowed the Cowboys to go from 12-6 down to 18-12 up, as they missed 10 tackles in the space of five minutes.
Tom Dearden produced the play of the night when he fooled Hynes out of dummy-half and went 60 metres to score, dummying past the halfback and then brushing aside Will Kennedy with ease.
Jason Taumalolo also got the better of Cronulla when he put on a long ball moments later, allowing Peta Hiku to get around Siosifa Talakai, Ronaldo Mulitalo and Kennedy with ease.
The match swung both ways in the second half, with Cronulla forced to defend with 12 men for the final eight minutes when Connor Tracey was sin-binned for a professional foul.
The Sharks weren't happy with the decision nor an earlier obstruction that denied what would likely have been a match-sealing try, but looked as if they were going to hold onto a 30-24 lead.
That was until Taumalolo burst over the line with 24 seconds on the clock, sending the game to extra-time and eventually golden point before Holmes' 44-metre winning field goal.
North Queensland also weren't without fault, putting in their second worst defensive game of the season.
But they'll at least have 14 days to recover, before hosting a home preliminary final in two weeks.
It's the kind of break the Sharks can now only dream about as they prepare to do it the hard way to keep their season alive.
