Rugby League Coaching Manuals

"We keep going forward," Sharks coach Stuart said after the win.

"Those critics who bag us should look in their own backyards."

But then all hell broke lose.

"I was in the car on the Sunday or Monday and I heard it on the radio," said Sharks prop Luke Douglas.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was a massive shock and I still wouldn't believe it until Ricky called us in and told us."

The bombshell that would rip the team apart was, of course, Greg Bird and the night that would send him and his club to hell and back.

In events that remain clouded to this day, Bird's then girlfriend Katie Milligan was in hospital with a gash in her head and the rugby league star was being questioned by police for allegedly glassing her.

"We all knew that he didn't do it," Douglas said. "Only a couple of guys were able to get in contact with him and he wasn't saying much. At first none of us really knew a thing."

On the Monday morning, while Bird was locked up at Sutherland police station, Cronulla players arrived at training to be confronted by media madness.

"I had never seen anything like it before," said Kade Snowden.

"There were cameras and people everywhere. I didn't know what to make of it, but I just tried to keep away from it all. Tried to ignore it."

Stuart pulled the overachieving team of 2008 into a meeting. He told them what had happened and told them it could either ruin them or bring them together. "He told us to use it," said Douglas. "And it did bring us together.

"It was kind of us against everyone else and we all formed some pretty special bonds."

It may have brought them together but it also ripped their season apart. They won their next match but whimpered out of the finals without much of a fight.

"I guess it hasn't been great since then," Douglas said.

"But I only realised what we had lost when I was in Origin camp. Birdy was basically the leader of the NSW side. He was doing all the talking and motivating and when I saw him do that in camp it made me realise what we had lost here."

In a quirk of fate this weekend, exactly two years after the incident, Bird returns to Toyota Stadium for the first time.

"It seems so long ago," said Douglas. "But we have moved on and so has he.

"Hopefully the fans give it to him and put him off his game because we all know how good he can play.

"We want to win this one for our fans and for retiring players Luke Covell and Trent Barrett.

"This game is about them, not about Birdy. This is our grand final and we want to win it for them."

If a week is a long time in footy, two years is an eternity.

It's 2010, the Sharks are ordinary, iPhones are cool and Greg Bird is back at Toyota Park as a Titan.

"Things change," Snowden said. "And hopefully they will continue to change next year, but for the better."