Lachlan Galvin put a fortnight of scrutiny behind him in the early stages, before a truly chaotic second half as the Wests Tigers toppled Cronulla in a golden-point thriller.
The 19-year-old set the Leichhardt Oval faithful alight inside 10 minutes, digging into the line and popping an offload to back-rower Samuela Fainu to open the scoring.
Any concerns about a negative crowd reaction were gone almost immediately.
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“Look at the Tigers fans in the grandstand here, they are standing and applauding the young five-eighth,” Andrew Johns said on Nine.
“He sees space and gets straight into it and explodes into the line … nice start.”
Lachlan Galvin celebrates with his Tigers teammates. Getty
The teenager continued to pop up all over the field, looking dangerous with every touch and forcing a dropout with a well-placed grubber kick into the in-goal area.
Galvin had a hand in another try, giving early ball to centre Starford To’a, who fended off a defender before flick-passing it to Sunia Turuva to score for a 10-0 lead.
“It only took Lachie Galvin eight minutes to repay his coach for his selection this week, he was heavily involved early,” Billy Slater said at half-time.
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Things continued to go the way of the Tigers when prop Terrell May launched a successful captain’s challenge for a trip – just moments after Ronaldo Mulitalo failed in his own bid to draw a penalty for accidental high contact.
At the break, Galvin had 11 carries and had been on song in defence, making 10 tackles without a miss as the joint venture leaked a late try to Mulitalo to narrow the margin.
Things got off to a rough start in the second half for the visitors when Briton Nikora was sin binned for a high tackle on Tigers skipper Jarome Luai.
Briton Nikora’s high tackle. Nine
It marked the 17th binning of the round, but there were little arguments with this one.
“He instigates it Nikora – there’s no problem with that one,” Johns said.
Things went from bad to worse with the Sharks down to 12 men when a towering bomb kick was allowed to bounce and Tallyn Da Silva toed it ahead to score a crucial try.
“Someone has got to try and catch it – look at the Sharks players just standing there,” Johns said after Da Silva’s four-pointer.
The margin was drawn back once again when Will Kennedy completed a long-range try, backing up on the inside to keep Cronulla within striking distance.
The ongoing sin bin drama continued as Fonua Pole became the 18th player for the weekend, this time for a high shot on opposing prop Tom Hazelton.
“No don’t tell me that’s it … that’s a joke,” Johns uttered on commentary.
Fonua Pole’s tackle that led to a sin bin. Nine
His absence allowed the Sharks to level the scores through back-rower Billy Burns with less than 15 minutes remaining on the clock.
The home side came up with a plethora of valiant defensive efforts at 18-18 before Pole came back onto the field to set up a genuine grandstand finish.
Nicho Hynes went for a field goal from almost 50 metres out that smashed the post, but Jesse Ramien was unable to regather it from the rebound.
With 30 seconds left in regular time, Daniel Atkinson looked all-but certain to score the match-winning try, but a desperate attempt stopped the Sharks utility and the final game of Anzac Round would head to golden point.
In the first set of overtime, Terrell May came up with a rare mistake, gifting the Sharks field position – but Hynes’ field goal attempt was charged down.
Nicho Hynes’ field goal is blocked. Nine
Cronulla would then be penalised for a high tackle, allowing the Tigers to get into field-goal range, but Adam Doueihi’s shot was sprayed wide of the posts.
Braydon Trindall would also miss an attempt in the second period of extra time, before a penalty right in front of the posts allowed Doueihi to nail a penalty goal.
After almost 89 minutes of action, the Tigers walked away with the win and the fans at Leichardt Oval, as expected, went absolutely ballistic.
