{"id":233946,"date":"2022-08-21T13:40:31","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T13:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=233946"},"modified":"2022-08-22T11:00:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T11:00:50","slug":"nrl-great-raises-alarm-as-sleeping-giants-build","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=233946","title":{"rendered":"NRL great raises alarm as 'sleeping giants' build"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Slater<\/a> has pinpointed the Sharks<\/a> as "the sleeping giants" in the contest for this year's NRL title.<\/p>\n

The legendary Storm fullback has sung Cronulla's praises following its 40-6 drubbing of Manly at Brookvale Oval on Saturday<\/a>, which chalked up the Sharks' ninth win from their last 10 encounters.<\/p>\n

The rebooted Sharks sit in third on the ladder after round 23 and will meet the Bulldogs and Knights in their last two games of the regular season, before ending a one-year finals exile.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> 'Ridiculous' Bunker decision slammed by greats<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Carlton shattered as drought enters 10th year<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Shambolic Bombers pull trigger on coach<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"They're the sleeping giants, the Sharks. I think everyone's got them probably fourth or fifth … in the race for the premiership, but I think they're just going under the radar," Slater said on Wide World of Sports' Billy's Breakdown<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

"They're playing a great brand of football.<\/p>\n

"I love the way that their halves connect. They play to their strengths."<\/p>\n

Slater rolled out vision of halfback Nicho Hynes and five-eighth Matt Moylan linking up against the Sea Eagles, revealing Hynes' expertise in floating between halfback and fullback.<\/p>\n

Stream the NRL premiership 2022 live and free on<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Hynes stamped himself as a star of the competition in 2021, mostly playing as Melbourne's fullback, filling in for the injured Ryan Papenhuyzen, before he arrived at Cronulla and was handed the No.7 jersey.<\/p>\n

Slater showed a play in the Sharks' win against the Sea Eagles in which Hynes joined the attacking line deep in Manly territory on the right edge and rifled a sublime cut-out to winger Matt Ikuvalu, who scored untouched.<\/p>\n

\"Billy<\/p>\n

"(Head coach) Craig Fitzgibbon has just created this accountability around him to give him that freedom," Slater said.<\/p>\n

"The players around (him) \u2014 you can see on that Ikuvalu try \u2014 gave Nicho plenty of time and width to use his skill.<\/p>\n

"So, Craig Fitzgibbon, (assistant coach) Josh Hannay \u2014 they've all done a fantastic job down there at the Shire.<\/p>\n

"They're the sleeping giants. Just be careful of the Sharks."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Slater has pinpointed the Sharks as "the sleeping giants" in the contest for this year's NRL title. The legendary Storm fullback has sung Cronulla's […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=233946"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233948,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233946\/revisions\/233948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=233946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=233946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=233946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}