A ropeable Benji Marshall has apologised to Wests Tigers fans after his side were on the wrong end of a 58-6 NRL demolition at the hands Cronulla.
In their first outing since halfback Nicho Hynes was ruled out for eight weeks with an ankle injury, the Sharks ran in 10 tries to snap a run of three straight losses.
Cronulla’s makeshift halves pairing of Brayden Trindall and Daniel Atkinson impressed on Friday as winger Ronaldo Mulitalo bagged his first NRL hat-trick in front of a 10,912 crowd at Shark Park.
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The Tigers threatened briefly in the first half but a 17th-minute sin-binning to Api Koroisau was the catalyst for the Sharks’ thumping.
Koroisau also failed to finish the second half with a suspected calf injury, while in-demand Tigers prop Stefano Utoikamanu clocked up just 75 run metres and missed four tackles in another underwhelming showing.
“I’ve got to apologise to our fans,” Marshall said.
“When you take the field, you’ve got to choose the right attitude, and tonight they ran harder and tackled way harder than us and it showed on the scoreboard.
“We haven’t seen that (lack of attitude) all year.
“If it was a weekly occurrence then I’d probably know more, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it this year.
“There’s no one in our team that could say they played well.”
The Tigers remain last on the NRL ladder and have conceded 138 points in their last three games, with Marshall’s men getting off to the worst possible start when Kayal Iro busted over inside two minutes.
Solomona Faataape crossed to give the Tigers a brief reprieve before Mulitalo returned serve.
Koroisau was sin-binned as the Sharks made a break and the Tigers hooker was penalised for not being square at marker.
Sione Katoa scored when the visitors were down to 12, but even back to full complement and as halftime approached, Marshall’s side were toothless in attack.
The Tigers lost patience after three straight sets, Jesse Ramien intercepting an Aiden Sezer pass to make a break downfield.
Katoa finished on the same set to give the home side a 24-6 half-time lead.
“That was the most pleasing, they’ve got attacking weapons,” Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon said.
“I really liked that part (defensively) more than the other side of the scoreboard to be honest.”
From there everything went bad to worse for the Tigers with Koroisau, Utoikamanu and back-rower Alex Seyfarth all failing to finish the game.
Cronulla ran in six second-half tries, Mulitalo bagging two of them as Briton Nikora, Braden Hamlin-Uele and Trindall also crossed.
The only downside for Cronulla, who strengthened their grip on a top-four spot with the big win, was the loss of young forward Jesse Colquhoun to a suspected ACL injury.