Following Sunday afternoon's 38-18 loss to the Parramatta Eels, as a Cronulla Sharks fan, I was strangely just a little bit excited.
Not based on the performance. That was genuine three out of ten stuff, at best.
Not about the future, to be frank the season looks gone.
My excitement stemmed from a moment in the second half where coach Craig Fitzgibbon was seen punching a computer monitor, in very obvious frustration.
The usually stone faced Fitzgibbon had finally seen enough from his team. Finally the underperforming players he had trusted for months too long now had broken.
Finally the changes we as a collective fanbase have been screaming for now for two months would happen. Right?
Then the press conference happened.
Fitzgibbon replied, when asked: “You'd hit the screen if you were down 7-1 on penalties as well,”
Not the fact that the lumberingly slow Tom Hazelton was binned for being lazy in a tackle that could have broken the Parramatta attacker's legs.
Not the fact his team has thrown away yet another supposed lay up game to keep their top four hopes alive.
Not that the players he has spent months and months backing in the media despite below par performances.
Instead it was the referee ...
Not to mention the fact it was the most obvious hip drop I've seen, was a very simple sin bin and Hazelton is lucky to escape with just the one-match suspension.
It just goes to show that Craig Fitzgibbon still doesn't get it.
There is no doubt that Fitzgibbon's man management and coaching style has kept the Sharks in touch of a top-four this season.
There is also no doubt that Fitzgibbon's man management and coaching style has ensured the Sharks will not make the top four this season.
Many other teams would go to great lengths to produce the kind of results we have enjoyed in the Shire.
Two straight preliminary finals and another season of finals, the fifth in a row under Fitzgibbon.
That said, the cold hard fact is that Cronulla have thrown away their best chance to achieve the premiership many believed this playing group would deliver.
Fitzgibbon is loyal, to a fault.
I believe it has become his major fault.
Despite speedsters Michael Gabrael and Sam Stonestreet lighting up the NSW Cup, he has stuck with the tried, tested and slower options like Mawene Hiroti and Sione Katoa.
Despite having a specialist centre on the the bench this past Sunday to replace the injured Mawene Hiroti, Fitzgibbon refused to deviate from his pre-arranged bench rotation and barbeque'd Briton Nikora at centre.
We've seen this all before. Many months now. Years even. Fitzgibbon sits stoically in the coaches box. His post match press conferences are just different versions of the same cliches.
I've wanted to see passion and anger from Fitzgibbon for weeks. What the Sharks have produced has not been good enough.
We finally see it ... and he immediately blames the referees.
Blames the referees in a game the Sharks were short-priced favourites to win.
Blames the referees after Tom Hazelton was sin binned justly for a lazy tackle because he's soo slow and lumbering to get to the tackle in the first place.
Blames the referees after the Sharks, despite having 70 oer cent of the ball for a large chunk of the second half, concede on the first chance Parramatta have.
Readers will point to similar routines run by Ricky Stuart. It's always the referees fault when Canberra loses.
Ricky Stuart has over 550 games of NRL coaching experience and is very obviously deflecting. He's almost made a game about twisting everything to play the victim. It's an art form.
Fitzgibbon should be angry with the fact his team were in the spot they were.
Fitzgibbon should be angry with the fact he failed to act and back the players to re-energise the squad instead of relying on departing players who are no longer up to it.
If they were still up to it the Sharks wouldn't have let them go, en mass, as they will at the end of the season.
History tells you that you need to finish inside the top four to win the premiership. I'm telling you now that the Sharks won't buck that trend.
The Cowboys will be licking their lips at yet another chance to beat the Sharks at either Shark Park or Allianz, wherever the NRL dictates they play their home final.
I fully expect the Sharks to bounce the Cowboys in the opening week of the finals based on Braydon Trindall's return combined with the travel and run the Cowboys will have endured by then.
Then what? The Dolphins or Roosters, fresh off a defeat, come back and feast on the likes of Mawene Hiroti.
I don't want to scapegoat the reliable centre but since when has a reliable player ever won a premiership? Literally never.
The aim cannot be the make the finals every year.
That's not why you play professional sport. That's not what fans sign up and spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars a year.
No child grows up with dreams of losing in Week 1 of the finals.
Fitzgibbon should be angry.
Angry with himself that he hasn't got a 10-game Michael Gabrael to call upon this weekend.
Angry with Tom Hazelton for a horror tackle.
Angry with Briton Nikora for taking up over half a million dollars in the salary cap and delivering well below par.
Instead, he's angry with a 7-1 penalty count his side was responsible for.
