Like the obdurate tailender who bats deep into the next day's play, Cronulla's interim NRL coach Josh Hannay is the nightwatchman who refuses to be dismissed. Hannay joked he was the "NRL nightwatchman" after stepping in as Sharks' coach when John Morris was sacked in April, after an earlier caretaker stint at North Queensland last year. Fast forward 18 games and Hannay has the Sharks to the cusp of the NRL finals, with their fate in their own hands heading into Friday's clash with Melbourne at Suncorp Stadium. A victory over the minor premiership-chasing Storm would secure the eighth-placed Sharks a finals berth for the seventh-straight season. It would be an achievement of significant personal pride for Hannay but also reward for a Sharks group that had slipped as low as 14th on the ladder early in his interim reign. "It's been a rugged year. Faced a lot of challenges and adversity of all different shapes and sizes," Hannay said. "In my opinion we deserve to get to the finals. It'd be a satisfying achievement if we could get there and then if we do get there then we get to reset and then focus on a new competition."
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