Gallen wants Sharks in Canberra
Four years ago Cronulla fell at the last hurdle before the Grand Final, losing to the Melbourne Storm in the 2008 Preliminary Final and halting a playoff run that had promised so much after their opening semi final win over Canberra at home.
Skipper Paul Gallen was part of that Cronulla team that beat the Raiders in the Qualifying Final, earned a week off and then suffered the heartbreak of a loss in the penultimate game of the season. But the inspirational lock says he doesn’t need to draw on that disappointment to get up for this week’s semi final replay with Canberra... this time in Canberra.
“2008 was a long time ago, it’s a totally different team and a different coach, so it’s not really in my mind,” Gallen told
www.sharks.com.au in the lead-up to Cronulla’s semi final in Canberra.
“I’m just really happy to be playing semi final football again and I want to be here for a few more weeks.”
Gallen has reason to look forward and not back.
Cronulla had their best season since 2008 this year and had the Sharks beaten the Cowboys in Round 26, they would have earned a home final.
But Gallen believes they are not at a huge disadvantage heading down to Canberra, as even had they beaten the Cowboys they would not have been allowed to play their semi final at Toyota Stadium. Instead the Sharks would have probably taken the game to Allianz Stadium - also against the Raiders.
“It don’t think it makes too much difference and our form on the road hasn’t been too bad. Obviously it would’ve been nice for our fans to only have to travel half an hour (to ANZ or Allianz Stadium), rather than two or three hours (to Canberra).
“So I feel a bit for the fans as we’d put ourselves in a good position to get a home semi but these things happen and hopefully we get a few travel down there.”
Travelling fans mean a lot to Gallen, who is determined to see his team-mates put in on the road like they have all season.
“It’d be great to get as many fans as we could (down to Canberra) but it might be a bit hard for them to get tickets because I think the Canberra people would be buying them all up.
“We’ll just going to go out there and do our job and worry about what we can do and hopefully we’ll be right and maybe the week after we might get something in Sydney.
“But I guarantee we’ll concentrate on this week first.”
Source: http://www.sharks.com.au/news-display/Gallen-wants-Sharks-in-Canberra/63321
Topic: Gallen Calls for #Sharks Fans to Come to Canberra
