{"id":554691,"date":"2026-03-21T09:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554691\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T09:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:52:15","slug":"dolphins-centre-pairing-stars-in-upset-defeat-of-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554691\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins centre pairing stars in upset defeat of Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dolphins have sent an early reminder of their ability to match it with the NRL<\/a>‘s heavyweights in 2026, stunning Cronulla for a fast-finishing 38-10 win at Shark Park.<\/p>\n

Red-hot centre pairing Jake Averillo and Herbie Farnworth proved the major difference between the two sides, neither of which were at their electric best on Saturday.<\/p>\n

With the scores level in the first half, Farnworth crabbed to the right in the red zone to unsettle the Sharks defence and picked out Isaiya Katoa.<\/p>\n

The halfback’s cut-out pass hit Jamayne Isaako, who crossed on the right edge to silence the Shark Park crowd.<\/p>\n

Jake Averillo of the Dolphins celebrates with teammates after scoring a try.\u00a0Matt Blyth\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In the final two minutes of the first half, Farnworth found himself on the outside of his opposite man Jesse Ramien and then broke free from Sione Katoa.<\/p>\n

Farnworth then offloaded for a flying Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow to give the visitors a 16-4 half-time lead.<\/p>\n

For his part, Averillo had the Dolphins’ first try on a shift to the right before gathering a loose ball to stretch the lead to 16 points in the final 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

The eventual thumping win over the back-to-back preliminary finalists will be a big confidence booster for the Dolphins, eyeing their first finals berth.<\/p>\n

The victory ends the Sharks’ run of eight consecutive wins at Shark Park.<\/p>\n

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Braydon Trindall’s 100-game milestone and last week’s big loss to Penrith should have given the Sharks plenty of motivation at home on Saturday.<\/p>\n

But Cronulla’s attack was sluggish from the jump, and coach Craig Fitzgibbon would have been particularly disappointed with his side leaking three tries in the last six minutes.<\/p>\n

Selwyn Cobbo and Connelly Lemuelu crossed after the result was beyond doubt with punters streaming out of the stands.<\/p>\n

Blayke Brailey’s league-leading streak of 133 consecutive games could be under threat after he went on report for tripping.<\/p>\n

The Sharks captain was ruled to have tripped Tabuai-Fidow on a kick chase in the second half, allowing the Dolphins to kick for an eight-point lead from the penalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dolphins have sent an early reminder of their ability to match it with the NRL‘s heavyweights in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-554691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554691","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=554691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}