Gallen looks at positives

Cronulla skipper Paul Gallen insists his team will learn from Monday’s narrow defeat at Melbourne.

Late scores from Ryan Hoffman and Will Chambers snatched a late 20-18 victory for the Storm, leaving the Sharks’ chances of landing a home semi final in doubt.

“We can definitely take some positives out of it, there’s no point carrying on too much about it,” Gallen told the Sharks’ official website.

“Shane (Flanagan) already said in there we have to take the positives out of it and move on to next week.

“Fortunately it doesn’t really affect our spot on the table yet, we still have to win next week to ensure we get a home semi-final, depending on other results. It would have been nice to secure it this week but we didn’t.”

The victory propels the Storm to second spot in the ladder but Gallen says the Sharks aren’t far away from matching them.

“They’re one of the top two teams in the comp, they’ve got some great players who have all played semi-final football and we more than matched them in most areas except for that last few minutes,” he said.

“We switched off for two tackle fives, which is a bit ordinary on our behalf, but they scored two tries off kicks, so they didn’t break out line too often, and that’s the sort of defence you need in semi-final football.

“We just have to clean a couple of things up.”

Added Gallen: “The biggest thing for us is that we have to learn from it. They’re a quality side who have played semi-final football for a long time and we haven’t and all our players have to learn from it and get better for next week.”