Cronulla’s second half blitz blasts error riddled Raiders

v BYE

The Cronulla Sharks used a 30-6 second half surge to show they're capable of playing up to last year's premiership winning football despite new players in key positions.

In front of 15,807 fans at GIO Stadium, about 4,000 less than Ricky Stuart said he wanted during the week, the 42-16 result has left the Canberra Raiders ruing their unforced errors and poor ends to sets.

For the Sharks, it's their sixth straight win at GIO Stadium and follows on from a 16-14 win they claimed in the quarter-finals last season.

Wade Graham scored a hat-trick and two of the tries were set up by James Maloney passes.  

His first four pointer in the 31st minute was from a Maloney short ball at the line on Canberra's right edge, the edge frequently exposed throughout the night.

The second-rower's last two tries came within the space of five minutes. There was a hole in the Raiders defence in the 53rd minute from 30 metres out, because Josh Hodgson was limping on the other side of the field, and once Graham received the ball from Maloney to go through the line he beat Jack Wighton to score.

In the 57th minute Iosia Soliola made a try saving tackle on Jack Bird and the Raiders were too far stretched to prevent Graham from scooting over the try line from dummy half to complete the hat-trick.

Bird looked like a seasoned fullback in what was considered pre-game as a temporary cover until the impending return of Valentine Holmes and rookie Jayden Brailey scored a try in an excellence performance.

The New South Wales representative has now put pressure on Cronulla coach Shane Flannagan to rethink the side's first choice fullback for the rest of the season.

Canberra threatened for most of the match to score at a similar rate to the Sharks, but with just 16 points they continued their run of losses when scoring 20 points or less to 40 straight games.

Blake Austin produced some individual brilliance in the first half to keep the home team close to the Sharks.

He broke the line on halfway in the 35th minute, leaving Graham flat on the turf, and his dash to try line and pass for Jordan Rapana got them within two points and the halftime scoreboard of 10-8. 

After a low scoring and high error first half from both teams, it was the Raiders that didn't make much improvement from their 63 per cent first forty minutes completion rate.

Next week the Canberra host the Wests Tigers on Sunday afternoon and the Sharks take on the St George Dragons at home following the Raiders v Tigers.