‘Worst stadium in Australia’: Contender outraged as spiritual home canned for NRL finals

The bad news just gets worse for the Sharks with the club told they won’t be able to host next week’s home elimination final at Shark Park.

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Cronulla lost in heartbreaking circumstances on Saturday night as the Storm scored in the final second and the club woke to the news on Sunday that they won’t be hosting the Cowboys next Saturday night in the Shire.

Instead, News Corp is reporting they’ll play their home final at Moore Park’s Allianz Stadium – 25km north of their spiritual home, Ocean Protect Stadium.

The ground only holds about 14,000 and the NRL has deemed it unfit to host blockbuster finals matches.

Sharks officials are angry with the decision but were always fighting an uphill battle because the NRL gets all the gate takings in finals matches and the move to Allianz should see an extra 10,000 tickets sold.

“It is the worst stadium in Australia,” Fox League’s Luke Keary said.

Fox League’s Mick Ennis knows too well what it’s like to be told Shark Park is not big enough to host finals games.

“We played back in 2016, a prelim final and went to Allianz Stadium. In all seriousness, Cronulla would absolutely love to be playing at home, it adds such an atmosphere for those players,” Ennis said.

“If they’ve got to go to Allianz Stadium, it’s a world-class stadium. Cronulla fans will pile into their buses as they did back then and they’d make it feel like a home ground against the Cowboys.”

Ennis said the Sharks should not whinge about the game being moved, but embrace the opportunity to play in front of a bigger crowd.

“If you’re worried about where you’re playing when it gets to the finals, then your mindset is completely wrong. It’s anytime, anywhere, just get it done, you know, and that’s got to be the mentality of the Sharks,” Ennis said.

Generally, teams can host home finals at suburban ground in the first week of the finals before matches are moved to bigger stadiums.

Unless there’s a major upgrade to the old Shark Park, it looks like it will never host finals football again.

The full week one finals draw will be released by the NRL on Sunday afternoon and the Warriors may even be forced to move their home final from Mt Smart Stadium to Eden Park to ensure an extra 20,000 fans can watch the game live.

It’s believed they will host their finals game at their regular home ground.

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