Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks

Inaugural season: 1967

Home field: PointsBet Stadium, Sydney, Australia

Owner: Cronulla-Sutherland District Rugby League Football Club Ltd.

Team colors: Sky blue, white, and black

Overview

The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks is a professional rugby team that plays in Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL). The franchise is based in Cronulla, a beachside suburb in the Sutherland area of Sydney. The Sharks joined Australia’s premier rugby league in 1967 and advanced to their first grand final just seven seasons later; however, it would be another four decades before they won their first championship. The accomplishment came after the team was embroiled in a performance-enhancing drug scandal in the early 2010s. The incident resulted in the suspension of their head coach and several players in 2014, gutting the team and sending the franchise into a tailspin. However, two years later, the Sharks rebounded and won the only premiership in franchise history.

History

Rugby grew out of the sport known as football in England and as soccer in North America. The sport originated in the early nineteenth century at the Rugby School in Warwickshire, England. Similar to football/soccer, players must get the ball into the opponent’s goal, but in rugby they are allowed to pick up the ball and run with it and tackle the opposing ball carrier. As rugby became more popular throughout the empire, British soldiers were credited with bringing it to the colony of Australia. In the early twentieth century, some of the nation’s best amateur players banded together to form the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL), which became the country’s top-ranked professional league.

The NSWRL consisted exclusively of Sydney-based teams for much of its existence, with teams anchored in the suburbs of Australia’s largest city. In 1963, a new rugby club was formed to represent the suburbs of Cronulla and Caringbah. The Cronulla-Caringbah club joined the NSWRL in 1967 and changed its name to Cronulla-Sutherland, adopting the nickname Sharks in the process. Despite the team name, Cronulla-Sutherland’s first logo did not feature any sign of an aquatic predator but instead had the image of the HMS Endeavour, the first British ship to explore Australia in the late eighteenth century. In 1968, the team added a black shark outline to its logo, later changing it to a blue shark on a black background. The modern logo was updated in 2004 to feature a streamlined version of an aggressive-looking shark set against a sky blue-and-black shield design.

Cronulla-Sutherland’s first year in the NSWRL was one to forget, as the team won only three games and earned the wooden spoon, an award given to the last-place team in the league. After garnering another wooden spoon in 1969, the Sharks began a slow climb to respectability, earning a spot in the 1973 finals series, the equivalent of the NSWRL playoffs. Once there, the Sharks made a run to the league’s championship game, known as the grand final. However, their luck ran out with a 10–7 loss to the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles. In 1978, the Sharks returned to the grand final, where they again faced the Sea Eagles. This time, the Sharks played Manly to a draw in the first grand final, requiring a rematch won by Manly 16–0.

Cronulla-Sutherland experienced severe financial difficulties in the 1980s, forcing the NSWRL to take over administration of the team and provide it with a loan to keep it operational. The club suffered similar problems in the early 1990s and again needed help from the league to stay afloat. The situation was dire enough for legendary coach Jack Gibson to joke that “waiting for Cronulla to win a premiership is like leaving the porch lamp on for Harold Holt.” This was a reference to former Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt who disappeared while swimming in the ocean 1967.

The 1990s also marked a period of change from Australian rugby. The NSWRL had begun expanding outside the Sydney area in the late 1980s, and the league was looking to increase its appeal to a nationwide audience. At the same time, a rival known as the Super League was formed with financial backing from the US media giant News Corporation. The NSWRL became the Australian Rugby League (ARL), while the Super League began play in the 1997. Cronulla-Sutherland jumped over to the Super League and made it all the way to the grand final before losing to the Brisbane Broncos.

However, the Super League experiment proved short-lived, and the AFL merged with its rival for the 1998 season, forming the National Rugby League. In 1999, the Sharks dropped Cronulla-Sutherland from their name and responded with the best regular season in franchise history, posting a league-best 18–6 record. They readopted their geographical name in 2004.

In 2013, the Sharks became the focus of an investigation involving the use of banned supplements in the 2011 season. Several players, coaches, and members of the team medical staff were implicated in the probe. In 2014, fourteen Sharks players were found guilty of using the banned supplements and suspended by the NRL. Head coach Shane Flanagan was also suspended. With its roster gutted, Cronulla-Sutherland finished the 2014 season with just five wins and earned the third wooden spoon in franchise history.

With Flanagan back and its roster restored in 2015, Cronulla-Sutherland rebounded to make the NRL finals series. In 2016, the Sharks won seventeen games, including the most dominant win in franchise history, a 62–0 thrashing of the Newcastle Knights. The Sharks made it to the grand finals where they capped off the first championship in team history with a 14–12 win over the Melbourne Storm. After winning the title, Sharks’ captain Paul Gallen announced that it was time for the people of Cronulla to “turn your porch lights off.”

The Sharks ran into more troubles in 2018 when Coach Flanagan was stripped of his position by the league when it was revealed that he maintained contact with the club during his 2014 suspension. The team also experienced another bout of financial problems and had to restructure its front office. A year later, the franchise announced its historic home field of PointsBet Stadium—colloquially known as Shark Park—was facing a two-year closure for renovations, forcing the team to temporarily play its home games in Netstrata Jubilee Stadium, home of the St. George Illawarra Dragons.

In 2021, after the Sharks played against the Sydney Roosters and lost 28-16, head coach John Morris was fired and replaced with interim coach Josh Hannay. However, the team lost its next five games. The Sharks finished in ninth place and missed the finals for the first time since 2014.

The next season was much better for the team. The Sharks finished second. The team was defeated in the finals by North Queensland. They finished the 2023 seaon in sixth place. They lost to the Sydney Roosters in an elimination final, 13-12.

Notable players

The top spots on Cronulla-Sutherland’s scoring list are dominated by the Rogers family—Steve Rogers and his son, Mat. Steve Rogers played for the Sharks from 1973–1982 and again in 1985. He held the club record for most points scored with 1,253. This total includes 82 tries and 501 goal kicks. A try is awarded when a player touches the ball down inside an opponent’s goal area; a goal kick occurs when a player kicks the ball over the crossbar and through the goal posts. Rogers won the 1981 Dally M Player of the Year, the award given to the most outstanding player during the regular season. He was inducted into the Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame in 2008. Mat Rogers scored 75 tries and 406s for a point total of 1,112—second most all-time in club history. Mat Rogers played for the Sharks from 1995–2001.

Andrew Ettingshausen played with Cronulla-Sutherland from 1983–2000. Nicknamed “ET,” Ettingshausen was a prolific try scorer whose 165 tries is not only a team record, but also ranks fourth all-time in NRL history. He was also fifth on the Sharks’ all-time scoring list with 662 points. Ettingshausen was named to the Hall of Fame in 2008. Gavin Miller spent two stints with the Sharks from 1980–1983 and again from 1986–1992. Miller was one of the best Australian rugby players of the late 1980s and won back-to-back Dally M awards after the 1988 and 1989 seasons.

David Peachey played in 232 games with the Sharks from 1994–2005 and scored 110 tries, second most in team history. In 1999, Peachey broke Ettingshausen’s record for most tries in a season with 19. Luke Covell scored 55 tries and 364 goals with the team from 2005–2010. His 948 points scored place him third in team history. Paul Gallen began his career with Cronulla-Sutherland in 2001 and played in a club-record 348 games, a figure good enough for sixth all-time in NRL history. Before retiring after the 2019 season, Gallen had 63 tries with the Sharks and was an integral part of the team’s lone premiership in 2016. Valentine Holmes spent five seasons with the Sharks from 2014–2018, scoring 66 tries, ranking him fifth in team history.

Bibliography

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