NRL: Will Kennedy named man-of-the-match as Cronulla Sharks win golden-point thriller

In his 30^th career appearance at fullback for the Sharks, the Bathurst talent scored a crucial 61st minute try against the St George Illawarra Dragons.

Cronulla then went on to snatch a 13-12 golden point victory at Kogarah.

"Without doubt that was a massive moment for us when he scored that try. We were down to 12 men and I was just getting the feeling that we were hanging in there," Cronulla's caretaker coach Josh Hannay said.

"We just got some field possession and yeah, it was a big play, a big moment in the game."

That try was part of an impressive all-round performance. Kennedy was excellent under the high ball in the dewy conditions, he had a line break, nine tackle breaks, a try-assist in the first half and he even forced a line drop-out with a nice grubber kick.

It added to a solid season thus far, Kennedy sitting 10^th on the Dally M leaderboard heading into Friday night's match.

In Hannay's opinion, it is form Kennedy has worked hard to find and maintain.

"I thought Will was fantastic. You know what everyone sees obviously when we play is, I guess, Will the player, but what he's doing now as a player is a result of really hard work," he said.

"It's not luck, it's not skill, it's not talent. He's worked harder than he's ever worked over the pre-season Will and he's worked harder week-to-week on his craft than he ever has.

"I think for him, the penny has really dropped about the importance of hard work and the best is ahead for Will. He's a key player for us now and he's going to be into the future."

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Kennedy, who has now scored eight tries in 11 appearances this season, locked the game up at 10-all when he ran onto a Matt Moylan ball in the second half.

"He's just eyes up footy Moyza, he's great to play with. He's just very smart and I love to play with him," Kennedy said.

At the time the Sharks were a man short, Josh Dugan having been sin-binned for a high shot.

The successful conversion which followed gave the Sharks the lead before a Dragons penalty goal five minutes before full-time locked it up at 12-all.

From there the match went into golden-point, Chad Townsend slotting an 84th-minute field goal to hand the Sharks the win.

"I was getting a bit nervous towards the end there, but we rolled down the field and Chaddy slotted it. It's good to sing the song again, it's been a while," Kennedy said after his man-of-the-match effort.

"It's good to finally get a win and we worked really hard for that win as well. It was unbelievable.

"I'm loving fullback at the moment, just my fitness is the main thing I've been working on coming into this year and my size as well, just being explosive and trying to help the team out."

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