Cronulla have poured the pressure on the Gold Coast with a dominant 20-6 NRL win to ensure skipper Paul Gallen celebrated his club record milestone match in style.
Gallen moved alongside Andrew Ettingshausen on 328 games for Cronulla as they produced a hardened performance in front of a crowd of 15,217 at Shark Park on Saturday.
After last week's loss to Newcastle, the Sharks bounced back in style as new coach John Morris registered his first win as a first-grade coach.
The Sharks built the victory on a gritty defensive effort with the Titans enjoying three times as much football inside their opposition's red zone (59 tackles to 20) but only cracked them for one try.
After being held scoreless by Canberra last week and managing just six against the Sharks, the loss places coach Garth Brennan under scrutiny.
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Despite having more possession (52 per cent to 48), winning the penalty count (14-5) and making fewer errors (15-18), the Titans never really looked dangerous.
After 128 minutes of football, the Titans got their first try of the 2019 season when Brenko Lee snuck over after a break by Jai Arrow.
Origin forward Arrow was shining light for the Titans in an otherwise dour performance, running for 299 metres, busting 7 tackles and making two linebreaks.
The Sharks were struck a big blow when Jayden Brailey was taken off in the 24th minute with a head knock and did not return.
The Titans got over the line twice in the opening five minutes through Ryan James and Arrow but on both occasions were denied by the bunker.
The Sharks proceeded to take the game out of the visitors' hands in a dynamic 10-minute burst, putting on three tries in that time.
Their first two tries were almost identical - on both occasions the Sharks' right side stripped the Titans defence for numbers with Shaun Johnson putting over Sione Katoa with some good decision making and slick passing.
The Sharks led 20-0 at halftime and even when Jayson Bukuya was sin-binned in the second-half, the Titans couldn't convert their one-man advantage into points.
