CRONULLA were made to rue the loss of Paul Gallen and Michael Ennis as their dismal record at Brookvale Oval continued on Sunday.
Manly have now won 10 of their last 11 games against Cronulla as they ran out deserved 12-point winners on a gorgeous afternoon on the northern beaches.
Cronulla were missing Gallen, in camp with NSW ahead of Origin III, and Ennis through suspension as the Sharks slipped out of the top eight with the 28-16 defeat.
It was also Cronulla's 32nd loss at Brookvale Oval from their 38 games at the ground since joining the competition.
Sharks coach Shane Flanagan said the loss of Ennis had hurt the team's fluency.
"It stuffs up our rotation there. We had to make one [interchange] there with Benny [Barba], and put Jeff Robson into hooker for a while," he said.
"There's no cohesion there. Robbo has been there all year as a half and then all of a sudden he's at hooker picking the ball up and throwing it to someone else. It does mess with our cohesion, especially in offence."
Captain Wade Graham agreed.
"Mick [Ennis] really controls that ruck with his experience," he said.
"And when you have to play around with your halves and your hooker it certainly throws that consistency out of whack. We just weren't up to it.
"The battle for consistency is everything in this competition."
The Sharks did well to trail only 10-4 at half-time after the hosts had more possession and field position, but a string of poor mistakes and handling errors in the second half stopped Cronulla from gaining any momentum.
Sharks prop Andrew Fifita scored a late double for the visitors.
Flanagan said it was a challenge for him and the players to find their form of last month.
"It is hard in this competition.
"If you win three or four in a row you're doing well," he said.
"But you need to put big blocks of three and four [wins] together.
"Today, if we turned up and played like we can or like we did last week we would have got the two points."
Chris Heighington is facing a two-game suspension for a grade one dangerous throw and could miss Sunday's local derby with St George Illawarra.
Manly 28 (J Taufua 3, S Matai, D Cherry-Evans tries. J Lyon 4 goals) d Cronulla 16 (A Fifita 2, S Feki tries. M Gordon 2 goals) at Brookvale Oval. Crowd: 14,881. Leader man of the match: Brett Stewart (Manly). Sharks' next three: Dragons (home), Canberra (away), Bulldogs (away).
Can Cronulla bounce back against St George Illawarra on Sunday?
