Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon believes his side are beginning to bridge the gap to the NRL's heavyweights, confident that the Sharks don't even need to make wholesale changes to cement themselves as a premiership threat.
The Sharks' premiership hopes ended with a 26-6 preliminary final loss to Penrith on Saturday.
Yet while the scoreline blew out in the latter stages, it perhaps didn't tell the whole story of how Cronulla threatened to bring Penrith's dynasty to an end.
The Panthers scored three tries in the last 15 minutes but were made to withstand a Cronulla fightback midway through the second half.
Cronulla's impressive effort against the Panthers came after a year when they secured a drought-busting finals win and claimed the scalp of Melbourne on their way to another top-four finish.
Fitzgibbon felt such markers of progress showed the Sharks were "getting closer" to the NRL's big boys.
"The good part of where we're at is I don't see a massive issue that we have to change everything," Fitzgibbon said.
"We've just got to listen and there's a level in this process that we've got to get right and I'm excited for that."
Fitzgibbon said the Sharks were in the "middle of development" while the Panthers "were in the middle of a dynasty".
Their 2024 campaign was not helped by the fact Dale Finucane was forced to retire and Cronulla had to contend for a large period of the season without first-choice halves duo Braydon Trindall and Nicho Hynes.
It's why Fitzgibbon was pleased that, as in Saturday's loss to Penrith, his Sharks have begun to show a resilience missing in years gone by.
"That's why it hurts so much because we saw the effort," Fitzgibbon said.
"I think our ability to hang in is probably something that's been questioned in the last couple of years and I think we've gotten a lot better at that.
"There's a lot of pieces in play that are starting to add up now about what's required for this time of year and we're going to have to go and earn them all again next year.
"But I love the way we've gone through it all and getting there, it's still agonisingly short.
"It was a fair margin by the end of the game, but that's the levels they're at and that's what we've got to aspire to get to."
