\u2018Hard to sack him\u2019: Radley told to explore options with Roosters exit likely <\/a><\/p>\nSunday game “come back to bite” Raiders? | 05:21<\/p>\n
The issue with Hynes\u2019 complaint is that in the Sharks\u2019 last 13 finals appearances since they won the comp in 2016, they\u2019ve won only three of those games.<\/p>\n
They have also lost seven straight week one finals before the win over the Roosters.<\/p>\n
So, while some have labelled Hynes\u2019 comments as honest, I called them \u201cdelusional\u201d on NRL 360 during the week given even the Sharks\u2019 most passionate fans would struggle to block out the last eight years and just forget it ever happened.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, I haven\u2019t heard a single person this week say they don\u2019t give the Sharks a massive chance of upsetting the Raiders on the back of what in happened in Canberra last week.<\/p>\n
The Sharks were also given huge \u2018respect\u2019 for the gutsy win over the Roosters, as well as a dominant victory over the Bulldogs in the final round of the regular season.<\/p>\n
Yet if we are being brutally honest, we also can\u2019t overlook that while Hynes put in a fair individual performance against the Roosters last week, he hardly set the world on fire.<\/p>\n
And without question Braydon Trindall was the dominant playmaker in that win.<\/p>\n
That is why many have already identified that if the Sharks are to now go to the next level against the Raiders, Hynes needs to do more than he did last week.<\/p>\n
Which in no way is a lack of respect directed at Nicho or the Sharks.<\/p>\n
But it is the uncomfortable truth.<\/p>\n
Sharks vow to fight ‘fire with fire’ | 02:05<\/p>\n
WILL BULLDOGS (OR TIGERS) GET LAST LAUGH ON GALVIN SWITCH?<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t say \u2018be careful what you wish for\u2019, for no good reason.<\/p>\n
And the rollercoaster ride Lachlan Galvin has been on this year is a classic example. <\/p>\n
While Galvin certainly got his wish to leave Wests Tigers to join the Bulldogs midseason, we are about to find out if it ends in a dream come true.<\/p>\n
Or will Tigers fans end up getting the last laugh on the most controversial mid-year switch in rugby league memory, if the Bulldogs are bundled out of the finals backdoor come Sunday night?<\/p>\n
When Galvin walked out on the Tigers back in June, he said his move was designed to \u201cget me out of my comfort zone\u201d, and \u201cwould probably be the best thing for me\u201d.<\/p>\n
Three months on we can safely say Galvin is well and truly out of his comfort zone.<\/p>\n
But has it really been the best thing for him, or the Bulldogs, is another debate entirely.<\/p>\n
While Galvin would not have been a part of playing finals had he stayed at the Tigers, it hasn\u2019t exactly been what you\u2019d call a cruisy adjustment for a young man who only turned 20 back in July.<\/p>\n
And the expectation is it will only go up a notch this weekend with the Panthers planning to give Galvin another special reception by pinning a huge target on the inexperienced playmaker to try and expose some defensive deficiencies that the Storm also attacked last weekend.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, how Galvin aims up when he lines up directly opposite the NRL\u2019s champion No 7 Nathan Cleary will go a long way to determining if the Bulldogs make it through to the preliminary final.<\/p>\n
“What took so long!” – Sexton returns | 05:57<\/p>\n
There is no question the resolve in the Bulldogs should ensure they at the very least make a tough game of this.<\/p>\n
And plenty of good judges are saying it would not surprise if the Dogs were to shock the Panthers and live to fight another week.<\/p>\n
But one way or another, the guarantee is Galvin will continue to be the main storyline in respect to the Bulldogs long after fulltime.<\/p>\n
If the Dogs do go out of the finals in straight sets, the fallout will be massive among their army of blue and white fans given the fact they led the comp for much of the season when Toby Sexton was halfback and Reed Mahoney was starting hooker.<\/p>\n
Yet if the Dogs do win, it would go a long way to at least trying to justify the decision made by Cameron Ciraldo and Phil Gould.<\/p>\n
THE NEXT OBVIOUS QUESTION<\/p>\n
Victory would also create another selection conundrum for Ciraldo next week if inspirational skipper Stephen Crichton is fit to take on the Broncos.<\/p>\n
That would leave Ciraldo with the tough choice of either having to change a winning halves combination of Gavlin and Sexton to move Matt Burton back to five-eighth, or alternatively Burton could stay in the centres to partner Crichton.<\/p>\n
But the next obvious question is where would that leave Bronson Xerri.<\/p>\n
Every way you look at it, the Galvin experiment just continues to create more drama by the week.<\/p>\n
Yet the biggest question of all still to be answered is whether it has made the Bulldogs a more dangerous football team as was promised upon Galvin\u2019s arrival?<\/p>\n
Right now, most would confidently say not.<\/p>\n
But bowling the four-time premiers out of the finals race would no doubt swing the conversation yet again.<\/p>\n
‘Couldn’t give a rats’ Ronaldo v Marky | 07:22<\/p>\n
ALL EYES ON SHARKS\u2019 CHIEF ANTAGONIST <\/p>\n
It will be fascinating to see how the referee and bunker react the first time Ronaldo Mulitalo gets up in someone\u2019s face if the Sharks\u2019 chief antagonist forces a mistake or pulls off a big hit against the Raiders. <\/p>\n
Should it result in a sin bin as it did with Hudson Young last week, or will it require one of the Raiders players to head butt Mulitalo to get some justice?<\/p>\n
If it doesn\u2019t at least result in a penalty, you can only imagine what the reaction will be from the Canberra crowd.<\/p>\n
While I don\u2019t know of anyone who\u2019d not consider it overboard to see a player sent off for 10 minutes for \u2018celebrating\u2019 an opposition player\u2019s mistake under normal circumstances, the fact is the NRL drew their line in the sand with Young\u2019s sin bin, and the ensuing penalty that went against the Raiders.<\/p>\n
Surely they can\u2019t now back track from the precedent Ashley Klein has set _ or can they?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who would you want wearing the No 7 jumper in a game of real-life NRL survivor – Jamal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4614,63,689,7292,7618,2667,4532,101488,101486,101487,4565,101472,101470,101479,101477,21773,98051,8092,8090,676,52627,12735,101476,101478,101480,101489,43,101482,4518,4617,33215,44,101481,677,8015,59342,11396,19095,101475,101483,13391,11368,100733,97426,101485,28968,101484,8088,101469,4546,101474,4440,41,39,42,40,35634,101471,101466,101467,101473,4515,101468,46862],"class_list":["post-151231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-addin-fonua-blake","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-capital-territory","tag-cameron-ciraldo","tag-canberra","tag-canberra-raiders","tag-chief-antagonist","tag-comfort-zone","tag-controversial-mid-year-switch","tag-cronulla-sharks","tag-dangerous-football-team","tag-defensive-deficiencies","tag-delusional-star","tag-dominant-playmaker","tag-dominant-victory","tag-elimination-semi-final","tag-field-goal","tag-field-goal-attempt","tag-final-round","tag-finals-appearances","tag-finals-race","tag-finals-record","tag-finals-sudden-death","tag-four-time-premiers","tag-glaring-question","tag-headlines","tag-home-ground","tag-jamal-fogarty","tag-lachlan-galvin","tag-lord-gould-of-brookwood","tag-news","tag-obvious-question","tag-oceania","tag-opposition-player","tag-panel-looks","tag-paul-crawley","tag-preliminary-final","tag-question-facing-under-fire","tag-question-heading","tag-reece-walsh","tag-regular-season","tag-rickys","tag-rollercoaster-ride","tag-rugby-league-memory","tag-selection-conundrum","tag-siege-mentality","tag-sin-bin","tag-special-reception","tag-stephen-crichton","tag-time-loss","tag-toby-sexton","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-two-point-field-goal","tag-uncomfortabl-question-heading","tag-uncomfortable-question","tag-uncomfortable-question-heading","tag-uncomfortable-truth","tag-wests-tigers","tag-winning-halves-combination","tag-young-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151231","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=151231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}