{"id":141657,"date":"2025-09-14T03:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T03:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141657\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T03:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T03:19:10","slug":"nrl-toby-rudolphs-top-try-just-the-start-for-cronulla-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141657\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL: Toby Rudolph’s top try just the start for Cronulla Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toby Rudolf has rated his match-sealing try from Cronulla’s elimination final as the equal-greatest moment of his NRL career.<\/p>\n

But the lovable prop says Saturday’s 20-10 defeat of the dangerous Sydney Roosters is only the beginning for a Sharks side finally fed up with being finals cannon fodder.<\/p>\n

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A tight week-one finals clash only appeared beyond doubt for the Sharks when in-form hooker Blayke Brailey put Rudolf over for his first try of the season with four minutes to play.<\/p>\n

“I was telling Blayke Brailey all year, ‘Just one (try) mate, all I need is one’,” Rudolf said.<\/p>\n

“He kept giving me decoys and tonight he finally listened.<\/p>\n

“Once he hit me with that ball, I wasn’t being stopped, I was just stoked to get it over the line.”<\/p>\n

The try at point-blank range conjured memories of Sharks wrecking ball Andrew Fifita, whom Rudolf was seen embracing on-field in post-match scenes of jubilation.<\/p>\n

Toby Rudolf of the Sharks scores a crucial try against the Roosters.\u00a0Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Rudolf has gone at a rate of one try per season since he made his NRL debut, and declared his latest four-pointer the greatest moment of his 117 games, alongside his first try.<\/p>\n

“Equal first, in 2020 I had a similar moment against the Warriors,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That was my first try in the NRL. This is my last (most recent) one.<\/p>\n

“Probably a bit more do or die this one, elimination final, but I would love to live in that moment for a bit longer than a minute. I’d love to live in it for an hour to be honest, or a day.”<\/p>\n

Making the latest moment extra special for Rudolf was the chance to help seal just the Sharks’ second win from their past 10 finals matches dating back to 2018.<\/p>\n

That recent record would no doubt have contributed to pundits dismissing the Sharks’ premiership chances this September, despite a run of seven wins from eight games before finals.<\/p>\n

Rudolf doesn’t care if others have lost faith in the Sharks.<\/p>\n

“I don’t really listen to the external noise, I hear from a few people that no one gives us a chance, but so what?” Rudolf said.<\/p>\n

“We give ourselves as a chance and that’s all that matters. I don’t care about the outside noise, I care about the inside noise and the inside noise is belief, belief in what we can do.”<\/p>\n

Asked what had changed this year, Rudolf said the Sharks had finally decided enough was enough.<\/p>\n

The same core group of players has helped Cronulla qualify for the finals every years since Craig Fitzgibbon joined as coach in 2022, but has only once progressed to a preliminary final in that time.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re just sick of losing, we’re sick of sitting in that bar over there and saying ‘Next year’,” Rudolf said.<\/p>\n

“Next year is right now. I think that’s the difference, we’re mature now as a team.<\/p>\n

“We’re over it. We’re maturing as a team. We’re getting into the twilight, I’m 30 soon, so it’s time to make a run before this dynasty ends.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toby Rudolf has rated his match-sealing try from Cronulla’s elimination final as the equal-greatest moment of his NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-141657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}