{"id":162177,"date":"2025-09-23T00:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T00:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162177\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T00:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T00:35:10","slug":"nrl-news-2025-nicho-hynes-clips-journalists-as-cronulla-sharks-face-melbourne-storm-in-preliminary-finals-attitude-change-paul-gallen-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162177\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2025, Nicho Hynes clips journalists as Cronulla Sharks face Melbourne Storm in preliminary finals, attitude change, Paul Gallen response"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cronulla<\/a> halfback Nicho Hynes<\/a> confronted a group of journalists recently as his transformation from NRL<\/a>‘s Mr. Nice to the saltiest Shark took another twist.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old has had a noticeable change of public persona in recent weeks as he’s adopted a backs-to-the-wall, combative approach to their premiership tilt.<\/p>\n

The typical smile has vanished and Hynes has chosen to go to war with anyone who dares question his side’s title credentials.<\/p>\n

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He’s taken issue with criticism of Cronulla’s finals record in recent seasons. The Sharks finished this season fifth on the ladder, but have upset the Roosters and Raiders to book a preliminary final clash with Melbourne this Friday.<\/p>\n

“He saw a few journos outside a dressing room and gave them a little clip, saying ‘you are the blokes who’ve been saying we can’t do it all year’,” Nine’s Danny Weidler revealed on 100% Footy on Monday night.<\/p>\n

“And that is unlike Nicho to do that.”<\/p>\n

\"Nicho<\/p>\n

Nicho Hynes of the Sharks celebrates a try.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Speaking to Wide World of Sports last week<\/a>, teammate Jesse Ramien backed Hynes’ newfound anger.<\/p>\n

“At the club we all back Nicho 100 per cent. He’s our man and I feel like when he’s playing his best is when we’re all on,” Ramien said.<\/p>\n

The about-face from Hynes is no doubt a tactic to inspire the Sharks through what would be a stunning run to the grand final.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2025 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The us-against-the-world attitude is nothing new in professional sport, and Queensland coach Billy Slater has also adopted it with much success in recent years.<\/p>\n

Sharks legend Paul Gallen – who still works closely with the club – admits he has noticed the change in Hynes.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t put the thought in their head, but I have noticed it also,” Gallen told Nine’s 100% Footy.<\/p>\n

“I’ve interviewed the boys after games and a lot of them have mentioned it.<\/p>\n

“Whatever motivates you… but I don’t think motivation is a big thing in the game these days, I think they should be disciplined enough to be as good as they can be every week.<\/p>\n

“I do think respect is earnt, and to be fair when you look at the past five, six, seven seasons, I think there’s only one or two teams that have really earnt respect in big games, and that’s been the Panthers and the Storm.<\/p>\n

“I do think the media are harsh on them… but they are producing at the moment which is what they’ve got to do.”<\/p>\n

Weidler says the Storm are “very aware of it” as they look to host the in-form Sharks this week.<\/p>\n

One Cronulla player who isn’t buying into the attitude change is prop Toby Rudolf, who scored the game-sealing try against the Roosters last week.<\/p>\n

“A lot of my teammates have spoken about the outside noise but I’m not really one to listen to it,” Rudolf told Nine’s Today.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is talking about proving the doubters wrong, and I’m more about proving us right within our four walls.<\/p>\n

“I’m not entirely sure, I think people have written us off. We don’t have any Origin stars in our team, we also did have a mid-season slump as well.<\/p>\n

“People didn’t think we would be here at this time of year, but we always knew we had the team to do it.<\/p>\n

“To finally start executing our game plan, to finally start listening to our coach four years into his journey, it’s all paying off now. We believe we can get the job done this Friday.”<\/p>\n

The Sharks will again enter Friday’s final as underdogs, and it could well play into their hands as they look to upset Melbourne at AAMI Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cronulla halfback Nicho Hynes confronted a group of journalists recently as his transformation from NRL‘s Mr. Nice to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-162177","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\/162177","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=162177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}