Sharks coach John Morris “blindsided” by Eddie Jones reports

Cronulla coach John Morris says he hasn't spoken to anyone at the club about leaving his contract and departing the Sharks early.

Recent weeks have seen pressure build on Morris despite the Sharks making the finals in his rookie year as coach and still having over half of his current contract length remaining.

Paul Kent told Triple M on Sunday there’s a faction of powerful people at the club who aren’t convinced Morris is the coach that can win them another premiership.

The Sharks suffered a disappointing loss to the struggling Dragons which has further heaped the pressure on the Shire club.

After the loss Morris was asked about the speculation thats Eddie Jones was set to replace him as coach.

“(I’m) a young coach, that’s for sure, but I think everyone across the game can appreciate the challenges I’ve had in the first 12 months,” Morris told reporters.

“We’ve had massive challenges around the club with the salary cap fine, we’ve had to let players go as a result of that. Played finals football last year in my first year as a rookie coach.

“I don’t want to sit here and feel sorry for myself or anything, but I think I’ve done a really good job so far.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries to our top five players as well and we still can’t put our main side on the park.

“The Eddie Jones stuff obviously caught me by surprise, as it did a lot of people.

“I’m obviously contracted to the end of 2021, so I can’t really read too much into that.

That sort of speculation and rumour, I can’t let that distract me from my focus on this playing group.

“You’d have to speak to the club. There’s been mention at all to me about my position.

“It came from left field last week after we had our win over the Cowboys. We were singing our team song in the sheds and they were reporting on Fox that my job was under pressure, so that totally blindsided me.

“One thing is I’ve got a really good bond with the playing group and all our staff and we’re working really hard.

“We’ve got some unprecedented issues around our club at the moment and we’re all working hard to get through that.

“We had to release Matt Prior before the season started, we had to let Josh Morris go. We’ve had some challenges there and I think the more the club can support me as we get through these challenging times the better we’ll be in the long run.”