A rugby league team is always going to be an eclectic bunch because every player has their own story, but there's a common thread that rings throughout Cronulla's squad – an ability to beat the cruel twists of fate.
The Sharks are filled with players who haven't just overcome the odds or taken the path less travelled to make first grade, they've defied the odds to become crucial cogs in the club's premiership charge.
Now, with Craig Fitzgibbon's side facing elimination in Saturday night's sudden-death semifinal, their scrap-heap All-Stars must dig deep for one last rescue mission.
Their paths are winding and varied, united only by hardship of various kinds. It's not easy to go from the gutter to the stars but that's what Siosifa Talakai did, literally.
The blockbusting centre is only a few years removed from hauling bins on a garbage run through the inner west while playing park footy, and is now a State of Origin representative and one of the NRL's most destructive players.
Some had to wait and preserve through years of being overlooked. Toby Rudolf migrated through the lower grades at various clubs and didn't make his NRL debut until he was 24. Fellow front-rower Royce Hunt has become a regular starter this year for the first time at 27.
Others overcame their hardship in their younger days. In his first year with Cronulla, backrower Briton Nikora spent most of the year playing A-Grade and only cracked the club's Under 20s side for one game as he worked two jobs to try and keep his football dream alive.
Nicho Hynes warmed the bench in the juniors at Manly and wandered through the Queensland Cup until he finally became a regular first grader at 24. Now he's the new King of the Shire and will probably win the Dally M.
Even the club's biggest names did not have it easy. Hamstring injuries turned five-eighth Matt Moylan into a shadow of his former self before his bounce-back campaign this year.
Repeated concussions almost ended skipper Wade Graham's career and kept him sidelined for nine months.
Cam McInnes missed all of 2021 with a knee problem and veteran hardman Andrew Fifita's life was in the balance following a freak throat injury just over 12 months ago.
Both have reinvented themselves, with McInnes embracing a positional switch from hooker to lock while Fifita has become the team's emotional leader and elder statesman.
The Sharks are filled with players who have overcome things like that, when they have copped the rough end of football or the worse end of life and managed to rise again harder and stronger.
When you look at it that way, rebounding from a semifinal loss doesn't seem so difficult – even a 90-minute golden-point heartbreaker like the Sharks copped last week against the Cowboys.
"Part of a good team is having that resilience because you have to bounce back week-to-week. This week is a good example," said winger Connor Tracey.
"It helps if you've been through those times, it builds who you are as a person and we do have a lot of that in this team – the resilience to bounce back.
"If it's been a bad performance or some injuries, we've always managed to step up and find something.
"The biggest test is bouncing back from that, but we've all done it before."
Tracey, like so many of his teammates, has his own inspiring tale. In his early days in grade, he did not play a single match between 2015 and 2018 following a succession of knee injuries.
Souths were the club who gave him a shot and after successfully making his comeback he went on to earn his NRL debut with the club in 2019 before returning to Cronulla the following season.
Originally a halfback, Tracey has reinvented himself as an outside back and typifies the fight the Sharks must show if they're to beat the Rabbitohs.
"I didn't play for three years and they picked me up, so I'll always be grateful to them for giving me a crack," Tracey said.
"It'll always be a special club to me. I only played the two games, but I learned a lot. There's a lot of good memories.
"The season is on the line, so it's not hard to get up for it. This is the end of the line, and we're going to be ready for it."
The Sharks have had an early boost with Souths prop Tom Burgess to miss the match through suspension and the Bunnies themselves aren't exactly coming off a walk in the park following their brutal win over the Roosters on Sunday.
Backing up from more than an hour and a half of high-intensity footy isn't easy, to say nothing of the emotional toll of coming so close to securing a preliminary final berth only to have it snatched away.
But hard-nosed McInnes, another former Rabbitoh, hosed down suggestions the men from the Shire would be too exhausted after their marathon effort last week.
In fact, he believes they still have further levels to which they can rise and with Penrith looming on the horizon for the winner of the all-Sydney battle, that's just what the Sharks need.
"You don't have a career in footy without some downs. Some guys get a lot of ups, but there's a lot of downs too. Guys here have had their fair share," McInnes said.
"We could have played for another 20 or 30 (minutes) if we had too (last week). We'll be ready to go on Saturday.
"Anything we're putting out there on the field isn't by luck or by chance. We all put the work in, it's not over yet and we're still improving. We still have more in us."
