Nicho Hynes has announced his return from injury by putting on a clinic to help Cronulla to a 40-8 win over St George Illawarra and piling more pressure on Dragons coach Anthony Griffin.
Earlier, the Knights beat Canberra 24-14 in Newcastle, while the Warriors came from behind to defeat Canterbury 16-14 in Auckland.
Hynes, last year's Dally M medallist, was playing his first match of the minor premiership after recovering from a calf injury. He set up three tries and played a role in two others at Kogarah.
The result marked the Sharks' largest win over their archrivals in 16 years and was the last thing Griffin needed as he fights for his future as Dragons coach.
Days after players learned that Griffin had been told by the club they would begin canvassing options for a possible replacement next season, their performance did little to help him on Sunday night.
The Red V are now 1-2 to start the season, with a decision on whether to re-sign Griffin or move on likely to be made in the next two months.
"We just turn to water once it gets to half time," Dragons skipper Ben Hunt told ABC Sport.
"It's pretty embarrassing to be honest, in front of our home crowd, [in a] local derby.
"To toss that up in the second half is just rubbish."
The Dragons looked off from the outset after Jesse Ramien found space in the Sharks' first set and St George Illawarra managed only 14 metres from its opening efforts with the ball.
The hosts still managed to lead the match for a seven-minute period in the first half, as tries to Ben Hunt and Jaydn Su'A put them up 8-6.
But by the second half it was all the Sharks, with the Dragons woeful as they completed at 42 per cent and missed 25 tackles.
In contrast, the Sharks' attack fired with Hynes back in the team after one win from their opening three matches.
His first impact came when he put a long cut-out ball on for Ronaldo Mulitalo in the eighth minute, who kicked back inside for Will Kennedy on the fly to score.
There were still moments of sluggishness from Hynes, who allowed Hunt to skip outside him and shrug him off for the Dragons' first try.
But in attack he looked just as dangerous as he did in 2022.
The Sharks hit the lead when he put a bomb up in a tight space, and after Cameron McInnes leapt early and bumped Tyrell Sloan, Katoa took the loose ball and sent Ramien over.
That made it 12-8 to the Sharks at half-time and the floodgates opened after the break.
Hynes set up one try when he provided a deft ball for Briton Nikora to hit a hole, while another came when he provided a long pass for Katoa.
His finest moment came when he and Nikora combined on the right edge, burst down field and gave a one-handed offload for Jesse Ramien to score.
Mulitalo also scored a double on the Sharks' left wing, with his best try coming after Matt Moylan tapped on a Hynes ball and Siosifa Talakai put the winger over.
Knights get the win against Raiders
Raiders five-eighth Jack Wighton is at long odds to play against premiers Penrith next week after his lack of discipline helped give the Knights victory in Newcastle.
Wighton was placed on report twice by referee Gerard Sutton on Sunday but his 48th-minute sin-binning proved the most costly.
The Knights had just hit the lead — one which they never relented — when Wighton clattered the head of Jackson Hastings with his shoulder.
On the following set, Tyson Frizell crashed through the Raiders' line to put the Knights on course for their first win at home in seven matches.
Knights winger Greg Marzhew had a stellar club debut, registering two tries as he stood in for Dominic Young.
The conduct of Wighton, who was also cautioned by Sutton for a high shot on Newcastle fullback Lachlan Miller, would have been all the more frustrating for Canberra coach Ricky Stuart given the Raiders were without regular halfback Jamal Fogarty due to illness.
Matt Frawley started at seven for the Raiders in his first outing of the year, and the stand-in playmaker got the visitors rolling when he sent Hudson Young across the line after three minutes.
The Raiders' ill-discipline proved their undoing with Marzhew and Bradman Best finishing for the Knights.
Hastings was unable to convert either try and the Raiders made the Knights pay.
Wighton pinballed his way through some flimsy Knights defence to score and Frawley was able to slot a two-point field goal to give the Raiders a 14-8 lead at the half-time break.
They were asleep at the wheel when the second half kicked off and the Knights laid on three tries in the 10 minutes after the interval to help wrap up victory.
Marzhew exposed some condensed defence to score his second of the afternoon, with Dane Gagai powering in not long afterwards.
Wighton was sin-binned for his shot on Hastings and Frizell smartly made a beeline to the edge where the Raiders were short on numbers to muscle his way over for a try.
Even when Wighton was back on the field the Raiders had next to no attacking spark, structure or organisation.
The Knights, who face Manly next week, were able to defend what the Raiders threw at them as they walked away with their second win of the season.
Warriors fight back to beat Bulldogs
A fortuitous Shaun Johnson try with 13 minutes to go was the key moment in a tense win for the Warriors over the Bulldogs.
With the match in the balance, the veteran halfback showed all his class to step through a tiring Bulldogs defence to score under the posts, although it looked like Johnson had benefitted from an obstruction by Addin Fonua-Blake on Reed Mahoney.
However, the try call stood to give the home side a third win in their first four matches this season.
Early discipline problems cost the Warriors.
The visitors struck within the first three minutes, a penalty giving the Bulldogs good field position for Jake Averillo to bust out of a weak tackle attempt by Marcelo Montoya and offload for Jacob Kiraz to stroll over in the corner.
Another penalty saw Matt Burton land a goal to make the score 8-0 to the Bulldogs before a lot of the 19,000-strong crowd had a chance to take their seats.
The Warriors continued to be their own worst enemies when they had a turn with possession, blowing several good opportunities with poor option taking inside the Bulldogs' 20.
A well taken Mahoney 40/20 should have provided the platform for the Bulldogs to increase their lead, but a three-on-one overlap created off the ensuing set was foiled by a well taken intercept by Ed Kosi.
After all their graft, it was ironic that the Warriors got on the board with a soft try after 27 minutes.
Second-year centre Viliami Vailea simply ran onto a short ball from Johnson off an attacking scrum, busting through some weak Bulldogs defence to score.
The rest of the half was a grind as the Bulldogs' set completion rate fell off and the Warriors simply could not make anything of their visits into opposition territory.
It was an unlucky day for Fa'amanu Brown, succumbing to an elbow dislocation and reducing the Bulldogs to 16.
But it was the Warriors who suffered the next dose of bad luck.
Vailea was denied his second try and off the ensuing scrum enough space was created for Josh Addo-Carr to turn the corner and run 90 metres downfield to score under the posts.
Addo-Carr went from hero to zero, as an ill-advised pass in his own in-goal should have resulted in a try to Warriors second rower Jackson Ford, before the resulting period of pressure led to Montoya crossing in the corner to close the gap up to 14-10.
After Johnson's try, the Warriors' mettle was tested with a series of goal-line sets by the Bulldogs, however the defence held firm to give them a hard-fought win.
AAP/ABC
