Sharks outlast Storm in wild wild Woolooware

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Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks v Melbourne Storm

Cronulla have downed Melbourne in a hugely entertaining contest at Shark Park on Saturday night, finishing 31-26 winners in a marathon game of vintage rugby league.

Melbourne were impressive early with Grant Anderson crossing after five minutes, but the Sharks wasted no time hitting back through Ronaldo Mulitalo, and the two early scores set the tone for the night.

While the two sides traded blows for the next fifteen minutes, the hosts surged ahead after the 20-minute mark, Addin Fonua-Blake and Daniel Atkinson pushing the lead for Cronulla to 18-6 on the back of some poor discipline from the visitors.

Xavier Coates stemmed the flow with the first of his three tries of the night just after the half-hour mark to pull the margin back to six points, but a late first-half try for KL Iro and an on-the-siren Braydon Trindall drop-goal pushed the score to 25-12 at the break for the hosts.

Of the two sides, Melbourne had a much better second half - but ultimately it wasn't enough to deliver the visiting team victory.

Back-to-back tries (Xavier Coates, Nick Meaney) in the first ten minutes after the break cut the Sharks' lead to just three points at 25-22, but the Shire side was tenacious enough to wrestle back momentum, Daniel Atkinson again benefiting from Siosifa Talakai's excellent lead-up work to put a buffer back in the game.

At 31-22 the Sharks looked the more likely to go on with the game until a freakish aerial display from Xavier Coates delivered the Storm winger his hat-trick and narrowed the margin to five points.

Try as they might, both sides kept blundering chances to seal victory which left the Sharks five-point winners at the end, in spite of a prolonged final minute of the game where Ryan Papenhuyzen found himself on report for high contact.

The Storm have a bye next week ahead of Origin I, while Cronulla are headed to Gosford to face the Roosters on Saturday.