Cronulla co-captain Dale Finucane has hailed Nicho Hynes' resilience in bouncing back from his NSW axing to inspire the Sharks to a 48-10 defeat of a woeful Canterbury.
Hynes lost his spot for the must-win second State of Origin game after a disappointing showing in the Sharks' last start.
But in his first game since, he triggered the onslaught of points that effectively ended Sunday's contest by halftime.
On his 27th birthday, Hynes was closer to his Dally M Medal-winning best, finishing with a game-high 222 run metres and two try assists at Shark Park.
"He's really resilient as a person," Finucane said.
"What he's been through, with missing out on selection for Origin II, there's no secret that he'd be disappointed with that.
"But he was able to bounce back and steer our team around tonight, be tough where he needed to but also get our forwards to points on the field and run our structures."
The win reasserts the Sharks' top-eight credentials after they fell to Melbourne by 44 points last week.
They are now only outside the top four on points differential, while the Bulldogs fall to 16th to finish the weekend with the worst for-and-against (-154) in the league.
"The points are one thing, they're pleasing," coach Craig Fitzgibbon said.
"But it wasn't the points, it was the attitude adjustment, that was the most impressive thing."
Hynes looked in for another tough night when he hoisted a kick out on the full, then threw a forward pass inside the first 10 minutes.
But the Sharks co-captain dusted himself off by cleaning up a Kyle Flanagan kick and tearing away on a line break that led to Cronulla's first try.
Their second came when Hynes switched angles close to the line and sent a short ball to prop Braden Hamlin-Uele, who crossed for his first try of 2023.
Cronulla never looked back from there, continuing to exploit the Bulldogs' leaky goal-line defence.
The Sharks scored three more tries when their middle forwards burrowed over at close range, with hooker Blayke Brailey marshalling the centre of the park superbly.
Disconcertingly for Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo, Cronulla's points usually came after avoidable Bulldog mishaps.
Cult hero Tom Hazelton crashed over for his first NRL try directly after Paul Alamoti conceded a penalty for dragging a player into touch, while a Reed Mahoney knock-on from dummy-half gave Cameron McInnes the field position to score.
"The last two weeks, we've just missed too many tackles and we've got beaten in the basics of the game," Ciraldo said.
"We need to buy into the defensive pressure and the system that we've got in place.
"We can easily say, 'Let's find another system and accept mediocrity', but we're not going to do that.
"The answers are in that (change) room. We don't have to go looking too far."
Hynes added another try assist in the second half, throwing a beautiful flat ball to 100-gamer Briton Nikora as the Sharks piled the points on.
In the absence of NSW's 18th man Burton, Ciraldo recalled Kyle Flanagan for his first NRL game in two months.
The halfback scored a try down the short-side from dummy-half in the first half but did not have Burton's dynamism with the boot, and there was little he could do with the platform laid by his forwards.
Origin prop Tevita Pangai Jr ran the ball only twice in the first half and no Bulldogs forward surpassed 80 run metres.
