If you listen to Cronulla Sharks head coach Craig Fitzgibbon, his side simply has an attitude problem that will be an easy fix.
“To be perfectly honest, I think it's attitudinal. I reckon we need an attitude check on the importance of what it takes to knuckle down and play together and work hard together, and at the moment, it's only in periods,” Fitzgibbon said after his side had copped 46 points in a high-scoring loss to the North Queensland Cowboys on Friday evening in Townsville.
“I felt like we started the game loose and then the Cowboys are a good attacking team and it became a broken, open-field game, which lends itself to a high scoreline and we didn't do anything about it.
“In the second half, yeah, we got going, but at the end of the day, we're gonna take responsibility for playing loose open games. We've got to do something about that.
“We've been a good defensive team for a long time now, but not at the moment, so it's something to work on.”
Attitude is often blamed by coaches after a poor performance - it's not a new tactic from Fitzgibbon.
But the issues for the Sharks run far deeper than just an attitude problem.
These are elite rugby league players, highly paid, highly skilled and what's more, have been very good in defence over the years.
If the Cowboys blowout - where the Sharks scored 34 points and still lost by 12 - was a one-off, you could probably shrug your shoulders and hope for better next week, but the cold hard truth for the Shire-based outfit is that it's not.
They had a bye before the game against the Cowboys, but before that, leaked 34 points in a horror second half display against the Sydney Roosters in Perth, and earlier this year, let in 38 points against the Dolphins.
Most of their other defensive outputs have been okay, particularly given the high-scoring nature of the competition thus far in 2026 owing to the rule changes during the off-season, but their last two starts are a real cause for concern.
This is a team who, simply put, have been caught on the hop by a game that is getting faster with a squad simply not built for it.
What has become abundantly clear is that if a team gets on a roll against the Sharks, they will have a field day.
Friday night's game was a roller-coaster with points going both ways, and there is no doubt the Sharks can score them just as quickly as they give them up, but the games against the Roosters and Dolphins mean last night wasn't just a blip on the radar.
Every team at some point is going to give up a lot of points this year, but the Sharks missed 36 tackles on Friday evening, to go with 42 before the bye against the Roosters.
Those numbers are never going to win you a football game.
You only need to look at the top sides so far this year in the Panthers, the Tigers, the Warriors and the Rabbitohs. They have agile, fast-moving forward packs.
They all have players who bring speed, who can move laterally.
The Sharks just don't have enough of those players.
Their forward pack is still trapped in 2025.
But it's not just the forwards where there is issue. There is little doubt, for whatever reason, their attack isn't flowing to the same level it was last year.
Braydon Trindall's form has tailed, Nicho Hynes still isn't in the Dally M winning form he once produced despite the game getting faster and faster, and in the outside backs, Sam Stonestreet hasn't quite hit the level some might have expected by now.
Craig Fitzgibbon himself isn't totally blame free here either.
He won't be under the pump anytime soon given he has re-signed to the end of 2029, but the fact he dropped Sione Katoa, believed to be for poor defence against the Roosters, only to replace him by moving Mawene Hiroti to the wing and Siosifa Talakai to the centres, was mind-boggling.
Talakai might have scored a double, but he was awful in defence, while Hiroti wasn't any better.
That, as well as the lack of change in the forwards, does go back to the long-running noted lack of desire to play youngsters from Fitzgibbon.
He once almost cost the club gun centre KL Iro by not giving him first-grade minutes, and while Chris Vea'ila is due to leave at the end of the year, Michael Gabrael is also at the club and should be due a run.
Fitzgibbon has often refused to shuffle his team when needed, and while he deserves some credit for attempting a change and dropping Katoa this week, the execution was all wrong.
The Sharks certainly aren't manning the panic stations yet, but they very quickly need to realise their issues run deeper than just attitude, or they'll start losing touch with the top eight.
Next week won't be any easier either.
Who would have picked the Tigers as favourites against the Sharks pre-season? Not many I'd hedge a bet, but that's exactly where we are headed next Sunday afternoon with the Sutherland-based club desperate for a turnaround.
