Sharks Devour the Panthers

After producing the upset of the season last round by defeating the previously unbeaten North Queensland Cowboys, the Cronulla Sharks have backed that performance up with a 40-12 annihilation of the Penrith Panthers tonight at the recently revamped Credit Union Australia Stadium.

The Sharks win though was tainted by the loss of prop Ben Ross who sustained a potentially season ending knee injury in just the second tackle of the game.

Coming into the match all of the hype had surrounded the supposed feud between Panthers prop Joel Clinton and Ross, but the expected battle between the two lasted all of 20 seconds as Ross injured his knee while trying to put a massive hit on the Penrith big man.

“I was really looking forward to this game,” a sombre Ross told Channel Nine.

“I’m pretty disappointed right now.”

Despite the early departure of Ross, Cronulla still raced to an early 16-0 lead. The Panthers did manage to bridge that gap to just four points, shortly before half time, but the Sharks held their composure to produce a near perfect second half performance that saw them score the final 24 points of the match to run out convincing 28 point winners.

The Sharks wingers had a field day with their inexperienced opponents with both Darren Albert and Luke Covell scoring two a piece. Covell also added six goals to give him a haul of 20 points for the match.

With the pressure off after last week’s win Cronulla looked the goods early on and it translated to points on the scoreboard. Covell and lock Paul Gallen both scored through some porous defence on the Panthers right hand side to give the visitors a 10-0 lead after 16 minutes.

That advantage ballooned out to 16 points at the 20 minute mark when Gallen was in the action again pushing through the defence before sending a ball on the inside to prop Luke Douglas who raced away to score untouched between the posts.

Looking down and out the Panthers managed to give their fans some joy scoring the next two tries through second rower Matthew Cross and fullback Rhys Wesser, but the elation enjoyed by the home crowd didn’t last long as Covell crossed for his second shortly before half time to give the Sharks a comfortable 10 point buffer.

Cronulla went for the jugular after the main break scoring tries through Adam Dykes and Albert in the first 11 minutes to all but end the contest and send the home fans away in droves.

Albert put the icing on the cake eight minutes from time when he picked up his double by escaping the clutches of Wesser to race 65 metres and score.

The win sees the Sharks move into the top eight leap frogging Penrith in the process.

•  Have a view on this story? Send us your feedback!