Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon has revealed why he opted against shifting Dally M winner Nicho Hynes to fullback for Saturday’s must-win game against the Rabbitohs in Perth.
Hynes put his hand up to move to fullback to replace the injured Will Kennedy, who could miss the rest of the season with a hamstring injury he suffered in last week’s loss to Penrith.
Hynes has plenty of experience in the role, having played there a fair bit with Melbourne, but has only worn the No.1 jersey once at Cronulla that resulted in a 30-10 loss to Canberra last season.
Fitzgibbon would have been tempted to make the move to try to spark Cronulla’s attack after a couple of lean outings, but he thought it best to keep the spine as settled as possible with Hynes to again partner Braydon Trindall.
That means Connor Tracey will play fullback just as he did last week once Kennedy came off, with Hynes in charge of steering the team around the park.
“Nicho doing that, that was his way of saying that he’ll do whatever is required for the team,” Fitzgibbon said of his halfback’s offer.
“In recent weeks with the number of combination changes we’ve had and players changing positions through injuries and whatever, we’ve had to shuffle the decks a lot, so for this week, stability is the most important thing.
“I want to keep Tricky (Trindall) and Nicho working on their combination.
“Connor has been training and playing as a fullback for the majority of the season, so he’s the best prepared and he played last week at fullback, so he’s the best prepared to be our fullback this week.
“Leaving Nicho and Tricky to run the team gives us a bit more stability.”
The Sharks are coming off a spirited 28-0 loss to the Panthers where they were forced to defend their line for most of the night, but courageous defeats will count for nothing with their place in the top eight hanging by a thread.
They could drop out with a loss to the Rabbitohs and if other results go against them this weekend, which makes Saturday’s game in Perth so important.
It won’t be easy given the Bunnies knocked them out of the finals last year and then smashed them in the Shire in round 1, but the Sharks have the artillery to trouble a team that hasn’t been going too well in recent weeks.
“I think every win is important at this stage of the year,” Fitzgibbon said.
“It’s a really hotly contested ladder at the moment and it’s been a tight competition for the majority of the year.
“The result is important with only four games after that remaining, so we want to draw on our performance last week and take parts out of that, but we need to bring the best version of ourselves and perform strongly and improve on last week.”
