An Open Letter To Sharks Members And Fans From Sharks NRL Coach Shane Flanagan
Last Saturday night was hard to take for a number of reasons.
For one, as I said in the press conference straight after the game we were down on troops but fought really hard and got into a position where we should have won the game with a minute to go.
While I also maintain we probably should have been good enough to defend one set to close out the game, as we since found out the match officials made an error and if they had ruled correctly, I wouldn’t even be talking about this.
Full credit for the referees bosses for coming out and admitting the mistake, but it doesn’t give us the two competition points back and it hardly makes it any easier to swallow.
And that’s not even getting into another error made in golden point with the off-side from the charge down, a play which put the Panthers in field position to win the game, however we do have to put those things behind us and look ahead to what is a challenging run home to the finals.
Which brings me to the other reason for this letter and that is to encourage Sharks fans to get along to our games, especially at this critical time of the year and especially at Toyota Stadium, to give us that all-important home ground advantage. You never know but it might just make the difference in a crucial game.
While I appreciate the 7-odd thousand who came on Saturday night, I know we have more support than that and it would be great to see as many of our fans at the last two home games as possible.
We had a hiccup against Canberra, I admitted it wasn’t good enough, but with a side missing a whole bunch of our regulars, including our Origin players in Gal and Todd, I think every fair minded fan will agree the attitude and effort was great against Penrith and while the execution in some areas was down a little it was a performance which gives me, and hopefully you as a fan, plenty of encouragement for the weeks ahead.
Souths is our next home game and I would love to see a huge crowd at Toyota Stadium, a crowd dominated by our colours. I still believe we have the potential for something special this year and would certainly encourage you to get involved and to be a part of it.
Regards,
Shane Flanagan
Sharks NRL Head Coach
