{"id":849486,"date":"2026-08-09T20:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T20:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/849486\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T20:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T20:31:09","slug":"nrl-2026-sharks-press-conference-craig-fitzgibbon-hopes-loss-is-wake-up-call-his-side-needs-what-did-he-say-dragons-defeat-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/849486\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Sharks press conference, Craig Fitzgibbon hopes loss is wake up call his side needs, what did he say, Dragons defeat Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon hopes his side\u2019s shock upset loss to the last-placed Dragons <\/a>is the \u201ckick in the ass\u201d the club needs just a month out from the finals. <\/p>\n

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Cronulla were the hottest team in the NRL entering Sunday\u2019s afternoon clash, but were outwilled and outplayed by a Dragons side with nothing to lose.<\/p>\n

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The loss virtually eliminates the Sharks from minor premiership contention and puts in a dent in their top four hopes.<\/p>\n

Fitzgibbon was effusive in his praise for the opposition but said his side were complacent. <\/p>\n

\u201cFooty\u2019s a simple game sometimes and it\u2019s the kick in the ass we needed to be honest,\u201d Fitzgibbon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s more important to you, you do hard things. It\u2019s a simple game, just work hard enough and things work out but we didn\u2019t work hard enough and they ran harder and tackled harder and got the scoreboard in their favour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like we smart-assed our way through today. They were very good but we were nowhere near competitive enough today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about expectation during the week and expecting things to go well and every now and again you need a little shorten up and the beauty of rugby league is that it can find a way to do that for you. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were outplayed. We need to wake up to us and do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamish Stewart extends Dragons lead | 00:31<\/p>\n

The Sharks had won six straight games heading into Round 23 and were on track to contest for a top two spot.<\/p>\n

While that scenario is still alive, they\u2019ll need a major hiccup from either the Panthers or Roosters over the final four rounds.<\/p>\n

Fitzgibbon was asked whether his side was due a lull before the finals given the recent form. <\/p>\n

\u201dIt\u2019s not unacceptable. Footy\u2019s pretty hard. It\u2019s harder than it looks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got outperformed, outworked, and it was more important to them today than us, and that hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon hopes his side\u2019s shock upset loss to the last-placed Dragons is the \u201ckick in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-849486","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\/849486","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=849486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}