Living on the sledge but form will decide Chambers Sharks future

The form of Will Chambers rather than his sledging antics will be the major factor in whether the Sharks throw the veteran centre an NRL lifeline as incoming coach Craig Fitzgibbon prepares to make the final call on his future.

Chambers has been engulfed in a storm after Warriors prop Kane Evans was sin-binned for punching the Sharks star, who was the subject of four incidents of foul play that landed rival players in trouble with the match review committee.

As the NRL said it planned not to take any further action against Chambers for the taunts after analysing audio microphones from the game, the 33-year-old is fighting for another deal just weeks out from the end of the season.

Fitzgibbon is preparing to make decisions on Chambers, prop Aiden Tolman and forward Billy Magoulias in the coming week as he puts the final pieces of his roster puzzle together.

Cronulla sources said form would be the major factor in whether Chambers earns a modest contract extension rather than the backlash over his verbal volleys, which Warriors players and staff believed crossed a line on Saturday.

Fitzgibbon already has Jesse Ramien and Connor Tracey as preferred centres next year, meaning Chambers would have to probably settle for a back-up role if the Sharks wanted him in 2022.

Will Chambers was at the centre of both of Kane Evans’ sin-bins. Credit:NRL Photos

The fallout over the sledging prompted the NRL to listen to the audio from the referee microphones, but it couldn’t determine what Chambers said to Evans before he saw red. The Warriors didn’t make an official complaint on Monday.

“Sledging, I think, is something which certainly should not be encouraged,” NRL head of football Graham Annesley said.

“We all accept from time to time things will be said in the normal cut and thrust in what is probably the toughest body contact sport in the world. It would be ridiculous and ill-conceived of me to suggest there shouldn’t be anything said between the players. Many of them are good mates and some of it is good-natured, some of it is not good-natured.

“If it oversteps a boundary â€" and there is a boundary â€" as a result of anything of a racial nature or anything that oversteps common decency, there is a role for the match review committee and the NRL to get involved, or if there is a complaint from a club. If they overstep it, there are consequences that flow from it.”

‘Sledging, I think, is something which certainly should not be encouraged.’

Graham Annesley

The Warriors had the last laugh, though, as despite Evans being sin-binned twice for punching and head-slamming Chambers, they delivered a huge blow to the Sharks’ finals hopes with a narrow win.

For all of Chambers’ antics, the Sharks privately insist the mid-season pick-up from Japanese rugby union has been great for their culture and young players.

He has shown dedication to return to the club’s biosecurity bubble after accidentally breaching COVID-19 protocols when he caught a commercial flight back to Sydney following the birth of his child in Melbourne.

Chambers then undertook a frantic 24-hour road trip to beat a Victorian lockdown after returning to Melbourne and later crossed the Queensland border, sleeping in his car along the way.

Meanwhile, Cronulla skipper Wade Graham will have a final neurological test in coming days after almost two months out following multiple concussions, but a 14-day quarantine period is looming as the biggest stumbling block to him playing again this season.

The 30-year-old is said to have progressed positively in his recovery after staying in Sydney but, with only four games left in the regular season, finals-chasing Cronulla will weigh up whether there will be enough time for him to return to the park this year if he gets the green light.

Adam Pengilly is a sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.

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