{"id":73786,"date":"2025-08-16T23:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T23:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73786\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T23:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T23:42:09","slug":"captains-injury-only-sour-note-as-sharks-smash-titans-the-queenslander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73786\/","title":{"rendered":"Captain\u2019s injury only sour note as Sharks smash Titans \u2013 The Queenslander"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Ed Jackson |
\n August 16, 2025\n <\/p>\n

\"Cronulla<\/p>\n

Cronulla have crushed Gold Coast to solidify their spot in the NRL top eight.<\/p>\n

A suspected season-ending knee injury to influential captain Cameron McInnes has soured Cronulla\u2019s 54-22 NRL thumping of bottom side Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

McInnes limped off in the 20th minute of Cronulla\u2019s rout at Sharks Stadium on Saturday complaining of instability in his right knee, and will be sent for scans in coming days.<\/p>\n

Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon found it difficult to sum up the impact McInnes\u2019s absence would have on his team after confirming fears the 31-year-old\u2019s campaign is over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019d be hard to wrap up in a press conference five minutes after the game,\u201d Fitzgibbon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be an opportunity for someone else to step up as a leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s OK, Cam. Cam\u2019s emotional bank account has two cents in it. It\u2019s like just nothing \u2013 point blank \u2013 I\u2019m good.\u201d<\/p>\n

McInnes\u2019s injury was the only sour note for the Sharks as they ran riot over the last-placed Titans, particularly with the boot, four of their five first-half tries coming on the back of attacking kicks.<\/p>\n

With a bye next weekend, the Sharks are now an outside chance at a finals double-chance, having moved within two points of the fourth-placed Warriors.<\/p>\n

Wiradjuri man Nicho Hynes led the way in the Indigenous Round clash for the Sharks with 22 points on Saturday, including a first-half try double.<\/p>\n

\"NichoNicho Hynes (centre) led the way for Cronulla in their convincing win over the Titans. (Dean Lewins\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Wingers Ronaldo Mulitalo and Sione Katoa also notched doubles in the 10-tries-to-four rout.<\/p>\n

Mawene Hiroti set up three tries, including one off a clever grubber to Gamilaraay man Will Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Braydon Trindall\u2019s bombs terrorised the Titans\u2019 right edge in the opening half, with Jesse Colquhoun\u2019s first NRL try moments after coming on for McInnes one of those set up off Trindall\u2019s boot.<\/p>\n

The Titans actually began brightly, responding to an early Hynes try with back-to-back scores by Jayden De Groot and Beau Fermor to have a 10-6 lead after 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

But any hopes of an upset evaporated over the next 56 minutes as the Sharks ran in nine unanswered tries, before a late surge resulted in Phillip Sami and Josh Patson \u2013 another first-time NRL try-scorer \u2013 putting some gloss on the scorecard.<\/p>\n

\"BraydonBraydon Trindall goes over for one of 10 Sharks tries on home soil. (Dean Lewins\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Titans coach Des Hasler admitted the return of Keano Kini on the bench, after a serious neck injury had sidelined him since round three, was forced by an injury crisis to his outside backs.<\/p>\n

Hasler viewed the defeat as a step backwards for his team after some improved recent efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the last seven or eight weeks we\u2019ve been beat up and we\u2019ve played some good footy,\u201d Hasler said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(We) had some narrow losses, some unfortunate losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came here this afternoon expecting a pretty tough game against the Sharks. I\u2019m not going to use injury as an excuse, but we had a lot of late changes. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut they (Cronulla) lost a few as well and I just thought there were periods that we\u2019re in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t capitalise on the parts that we had \u2026 probably guilty of letting that game go, particularly late in that first half.\u201d<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Jackson | August 16, 2025 Cronulla have crushed Gold Coast to solidify their spot in the NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-73786","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\/73786","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=73786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}