The Sharks came crashing back to earth on Saturday night, suffering a 42-16 loss to the Sydney Roosters at Industree Group Stadium in Gosford.
Having defeated premiership heavyweights Melbourne Storm last week, Cronulla hoped to carry that momentum into the State of Origin period - a stretch in which their squad remains largely unaffected.
However, the tri-colours ran riot over Craig Fitzgibbon's men, who addressed his side's performance in the post-match press conference.
"Back to earth with a thud that’s for sure," he said.
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"We’ve been really consistent this year. We’ve been in every game, except for tonight."
Led by a fired-up Victor Radley in his 150th NRL appearance, the Roosters started fast. In contrast, the Sharks struggled with discipline and failed to establish any field position.
"They were terrific and then the energy they started with caught us on the hop," said Fitzgibbon.
"Then discipline, field position and points and we couldn’t get that back up and never looked like making it back up to be honest.
"We sort of felt like it might be coming with Radley’s 150th, a couple of debutants and Origin players missing, so you know they were going to be up and I just didn’t think we were up for the fight really.
"I thought they out-enthused us the whole night.
"We got outperformed and it was a real attitude check for us that we are going to have to work on."
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With the bye in round 13, the Sharks will have a chance to regroup before heading into the second half of the season.
"We’ve got a bye and a lot of guys need to dust themselves off and come back ready for business," said Fitzgibbon.