The porch lamps in Holt Street, Taren Point, in the heart of Sharks territory, have been burning through the night this week in readiness for Sunday's grand final against the Melbourne Storm.
It may have been coach Jack Gibson's joke, that waiting for Cronulla to win the premiership was like leaving the porch lamp on for missing Prime Minister Harold Holt, but it's the Shire tribe who have picked it up and run with it like a front-row forward.
![Surf shop owner Jacob Hilton-Clarke with his dog Daphne dressed up for the occasion.](/web/20161002045132im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/s/d/5/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grs83r.png/1475244217348.jpg)
Holt Street resident and Sharks supporter Malcolm Greer's hope for a premiership has been burning for almost 50 years. He was at the Shark's first game at Sutherland Oval on an overcast Saturday in 1967, along with his mate, ex-club president Mike Lion, who played lock forward for third-grade that day, when the team colours were "ugly chocolate brown with a bee stripe".
The pair are part of a group of diehard Sharks supporters who meet at Cronulla Beach daily, and are members of a Facebook group called "Cronulla Sharks to win a premiership before I die". They often reminisce about that first home game when 6000 fans showed up and the first-grade team beat Parramatta.
![Treasurer Scott Morrison and Mayor Carmelo Pesce eating coloured Shark strawberries from Cronulla Fruit fair.](/web/20161002045132im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/s/r/r/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grs83r.png/1475244217348.jpg)
"The oval was as hard as asphalt," Lion recalls. "I had to smear myself with vaseline to avoid injury." Lion named his son Steven, after legendary Sharks player Steve "Sludge" Rogers, and has two daughters who were Sharks cheerleaders.
They remember the taste of victory – watching hooker John "Bomber" Hynes score a winning try and lighting his signature cigar at half-time. Each day as they walk up the beach made famous in the film Puberty Blues – and infamous thanks to the 2005 riots ("we're trying to forget that") – they dissect the many near misses Cronulla-Sutherland have had in their half-century of rugby league.
"There haven't been a lot of victories – there have been a few 'shouldas' over the years," Lion said, echoing a sentiment out in force all over the Shire on Friday, but especially around Cronulla Mall where shops were decked in blue, black and white.
The Sharks' No.1 ticket holder and local member Scott Morrison, along with the football club and local council, sponsored a competition with tickets to Sunday's match as the prize. Quicksilver Surf shop owner Jacob Hilton-Clarke styled a blue cardboard shark fin for his grey great dane Daphne. Ham cafe's Kitty Kapoulos had her fingernails painted in Cronulla colours at Fingertipz, where the manicurists did a swift talon trade in "shark shellac".
![5-year-old Brian Freeman eating Shark Gelato from Frangipani gelato shop.](/web/20161002045132im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/s/8/n/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grs83r.png/1475244217348.jpg)
At the Cronulla Pie shop the blue, white and black cupcakes and neenish tarts were sold out by 9.30am. But another batch were baked in time for the arrival of Sharks legends Tommy Bishop – captain and coach of the losing 1973 Cronulla grand final team – and Matt Rogers, who played but lost in the 1997 grand final (as did his father Steve in 1978).
Bishop and Rogers both live on the Gold Coast but flew down for Sunday's game.
"Every morning I wake up thinking about that 1973 loss. I was just happy to get off the field that day," Bishop said.
Bishop said that for Sharks supporters, it's the words of another prime minister – not Harold Holt - that keep their hopes alight for a victory on Sunday.
"It's like Gough Whitlam said – it's time."