John Morris says he is glad Cronulla will turn their attention to spoiling Cameron Smith's 400-game milestone party as the Sharks attempt to bounce back following a deflating third defeat in a row.
The Sharks slumped to a 24-22 loss to a severely under-strength Brisbane at PointsBet Stadium on Sunday, their third in as many games.
It was also the third week in succession that Cronulla had lost despite scoring more tries than their opposition.
Chad Townsend's wayward day with the boot, where he failed with all four of his conversion attempts, cost the Sharks after he had taken on goalkicking responsibilities from Shaun Johnson following the New Zealand international's none from three effort in the defeat to Canterbury.
Cronulla are now just two points above the 14th-placed Broncos having slipped to eighth place on the NRL table. The Sharks must now head to Melbourne to face the runaway leaders the Storm on Saturday.
The night will be a celebration of Storm captain Smith's career. Melbourne and Cronulla have developed a fierce rivalry in recent seasons, culminating in the Sharks defeating the Storm in the 2016 grand final to win their maiden premiership.
And Sharks coach Morris said he was happy for his players to turn their concentration straight to the Storm clash after their poor defeat to Brisbane.
"Again it's a battle that we look forward to. Two teams that have got a bit of history. And that's what we need at the moment," he said.
"We need that mindset. [We] need to get that physicality back in our game. That's no disrespect to the Bulldogs and Brisbane the last two weeks because they've made us look silly. But hopefully the boys will be tuned in this week."
Cronulla could be without Matt Moylan who left the field with hamstring tightness after an hour against the Bulldogs. Captain Paul Gallen is also in doubt after he was forced off in the 25th minute with a gluteal injury.
Young half Kyle Flanagan could also be unavailable are being placed on report after his knee came into contact with the head of Broncos prop Matt Lodge during a tackle in the second half.
Morris said he got a "pretty good" response following his challenge to senior players to step up after the loss to the Bulldogs. He said Moylan and Johnson didn't have bad games against Brisbane, showing only flashes of their best.
Morris also defended his decision to remove Johnson for the final five minutes as Cronulla chased victory.
"It's a hard one to get three halves into your team. [But] at the end of the day we've had two games, against Canberra we had 20 minutes to find two points and we couldn't get it done. And then last week we had 33 minutes to find two points and we couldn't get it done. We're not closing out games, so what we've done in the last two weeks ain't working," he said.
"So I wasn't going to just go down that path again. I'm not going to just cop it for three weeks in a row. We're experienced enough to close out games. I know our halves have been disappointed with their last two weeks in closing out games. We had to try something else."
