The Cronulla Sharks suffered their second loss of the 2025 NRL season on Saturday evening at home, coming up well short against the Canterbury Bulldogs.
In what was the club's last home game for six weeks, the Sharks were never seemingly in the hunt against a well-oiled Bulldogs outfit who have now won four from four to start the new campaign.
Conceding the first try to Jacob Preston, a Kayal Iro try breathed life back into Cronulla in the 31st minute, but it was all the Bulldogs from then on.
Injuries didn't help the Sharks, with Siosifa Talakai (concussion) and Kayal Iro (hamstring) unable to finish the game, but Fitzgibbon said there were no excuses for his outfit.
โThey were good, they were strong. I thought they out worked us there a little bit,โ Fitzgibbon said during his post-match press conference.
โI just probably disagree with the round of questions we threw at them. I thought they had most of the control of the field position and that's what they did really well to us.
โWe had one little period there in the second half where it looked like we were getting a couple, but every time we got there, we turned it over or didn't execute, so they outplayed us today.
โI don't think we tried to turn it [the game] the right way. We started searching for moments and were basically carrying the ball down field for a last play kick to hope Ronny [Ronaldo Mulitalo] was going to come up with something."
The Sharks, who have a two and two record, now run into their toughest stretch of the season with road trips galore.
They travel to Canberra next weekend, then head to Perth for a home game against the Manly Sea Eagles. Back-to-back away games against the Newcastle Knights and Wests Tigers follow, before they host the Parramatta Eels in Brisbane for Magic Round and cap it all off on the Northern Beaches to play the Manly Sea Eagles.
Round 11 at home against the Melbourne Storm is their next game in the Shire, but Fitzgibbon said his side will take a lesson from the loss to Canterbury and prepare for the next month and a half away.
โThere is always a lesson whether you win or lose. These ones hurt more playing at home, and it hurts more getting out played at home,โ Fitzgibbon said.
โWe are on the road now for I think six weeks straight, so we dust ourselves off, pick up the lesson for next week.โ
โAs a staff and a club, we have some plans for that [the travel], but we have to focus on next week now."
