* More than most clubs, the Sharks lost a sizeable proportion of their home crowds to `live'' television (even in the Sharkies Leagues Club on game night many patrons watch the screens rather than walk outside and pay to watch the players live).

* Failed to build enough corporate facilities when the Southern Stand was completed last year, as part of the $9.6m Federal Government grant, and dropped about $300,000 in small-medium sponsorships.

* The loss of international Greg Bird, stood-down mid season and then paid out of the club over a glassing incident which saw him recently convicted, was followed by the release of two of Cronulla's top players from 2008 - half Brett Kimmorley (Bulldogs) and centre utility,

Fraser Anderson - and Newcastle's poaching of exciting Sharks hooker Isaac de Gois.

* Injuries and suspensions, particularly to halves Brett Seymour and prize recruit Trent Barrett, captain Paul Gallen, fullback Brett Kearney and prop Ben Ross, as well as to other players, have affected some of the Sharks' efforts in their losing run of seven straight games,

despite representative players Anthony Tupou and Reni Maitua, as well as Barrett and Corey Hughes, heading the club's recruitment this season.

* TELEVISION has foisted a raw and uneven scheduling deal on the Sharks so far this season, forcing them into playing most of their home games at 5.30pm or 7.30pm Saturdays - unpopular time slots for young families and children playing junior sport. Even next week's

local derby at Toyota Stadium has been scheduled on Saturday night, despite there being no Sydney games on the Sunday.

* The Sharks dirctors refused to countenance any privatisation of the football club. Peter Gow, a self-made multi millionaire and father of super-model Elle McPherson, was their last ``benefactor''. He left a decade ago after the well-publicised cutting up of a St George fan's

jumper in the club's Chinese restaurant.

* Like all NRL clubs, Cronulla received a relatively poor deal when the latest NRL-television rights agreement was reached. As crowd numbers bleed, that agreement isn't reviewed for another two years.

* The dour style of the Sharks play, particularly over the past seven years, has turned some people off watching them - and paying at the gate. Their critics say the Sharks lack the personality players of the past, going back to the likes of Tommy Bishop and Steve Rogers,

and stars since like Gavin Miller, Andrew Ettingshausen, David Peachey and Preston Campbell.

* While the Sharks are active in schools and the community, the decision to scrap on-stage player presentations in the leagues club after every home game (now limited by after-game functions in the new Southern Stand hospitality area) has been criticised by some parents,

whose children attended regularly with them to hear their sporting heroes and mix with them.

The Leagues Club

* The founding fathers had the leagues club built the wrong way in the early 1970's. Rather than facing out to Woolooware Bay, where restaurants and/or bistros would have provided patrons with more scenic water views - and the club valuable income - it was mostly

enclosed and facing west across the ground. Additionally, the smallish roof-line of the leagues club's Peter Burns Stand, while providing undercover seating for sponsors and ticket-holders up the top, does not provide shelter for the remainder of seating.

* Poor and inexperienced administration helped to twice send the club broke, before it was bailed out of financial trouble.

* Despite some moves over the years to do so, the Sharks failed to commercialise the sparse lower ground section of the Leagues Club, for additional income.

* The club went further into debt recently when hit by the increased state government gaming taxes and when forced to borrow to build outdoor decks, after non-smoking laws were enforced.

* From the early 1990's the club tried and failed, through a succession of councils, to rezone the large parcels of land surrounding the leagues club and main ground, originally granted to them by Sutherland Shire Council. Only now, with the club heavily in debt and more

than two years after the state government approved the rezoning, is the present council examining the club's development application for a $100m Sharks Village, through the club's financial arm, Woolooware Bay Holdings.