The Sharks losxjmtzywt no friends in a rollicking, high-quality 34-18 loss to Melbourne on Saturday night, but they might well have lost a key forward.
Powerful prop Braden Hamlin-Uele left AAMI Park in the 74th minute, appearing to nurse a shoulder injury.
But Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon confirmed after the match that his big No. 10 had suffered a suspected pectoral injury.
“It looks like he’s in a bad way, … I’m not sure (exactly), but it’s something significant,” Fitzgibbon said.
Pectoral injuries requiring surgery can sideline players for up to three months, but the Sharks won’t know the extent of Hamlin-Uele’s injury for a couple of days.
Fitzgibbon said there were several “bumps and bruises” in the rooms after a physical encounter, which didn’t bode well for Thursday night’s clash with another finals aspirant in Manly.
“It’s a short five-day turnaround, so it’s going to be a balancing act for next 24 hours.”
Fitzgibbon was pleased with many aspects of his team’s effort but bemoaned a few lapses in concentration against the NRL’s yardstick of constant pressure.
“It’s an indication of where we’re at. For the most part we were very competitive, but we limped out of halftime and (when they scored within a minute of the second-half kick-off), that rocked our confidence a little bit,” he said.
“We faced a difficult challenged tonight and ultimately we made too many soft defensive errors that ended up hurting us.
“It put us under pressure and we got away from how we’ve been playing a bit and that’s part of the challenge.”
Fitzgibbon and his Melbourne counterpart Craig Bellamy were both full of admiration for the efforts of Melbourne game-breaker Cam Munster, who set up two brilliant tries, scored a better one himself and orchestrated the second-half resumption that flummoxed the Sharks.
But stand-in Storm skipper Jahrome Hughes, on Munster’s shoulder in the Melbourne engine room, said when his five-eighth was in that mood, he was largely unstoppable.
“He was in that mood tonight when he just creates things out of nothing,” Hughes said.
“I’m in a position where, if he’s like that, I just gotta get him the ball and sometimes he got it himself, so when you’ve got a guy like that you’ve just got to feed him as much as you can.
“He showed what he can do tonight and he was a great player for us.”
Hughes admitted he’d been giving Munster a lot of advice about staying in Melbourne from the end of next year, when his Storm contract runs out.
“I’ll be putting a little bit of pressure on him,” Hughes joked.
“But yeah, not too much. He’s got a young family and he’s got to do what he’s got to do – but we want him to stay, obviously.”
