Newcastle coach Michael Hagan has hailed the performance of Andrew Johns as one of his best ever captain's knocks after the Knights maestro engineered a gutsy 22-18 NRL win over Cronulla at Toyota Park.

Johns backed up a tremendous kicking game with the match-winning try to reaffirm the Knights' spot in the top eight and consign the Sharks to a fifth straight defeat.

After pressuring the top four only a matter of weeks ago the Sharks could now find themselves as low as tenth by the end of the weekend if results go against them.

With the Sharks up 18-16 in a see-sawing contest which had already seen the lead change hands four times, Johns put the Knights up for good 19 minutes from time when he beat a flimsy effort from Sharks prop Hutch Maiava to dive over next to the posts.

"I thought one of his outstanding games as captain," Hagan said afterwards.

"He was extremely positive in his performance ... his vision and his awareness was again extremely good, his kicking game was of the highest order, I couldn't rap him enough."

The champion No.7 deflected the praise to his teammates before declaring the Knights contenders for this year's title.

"Once we're in the semis I think we've got the big name players, I think we're a chance," he said.

Johns had the Sharks back three under pressure all game with an aerial assault which will likely give makeshift fullback Brett Kearney nightmares for days to come.

His first high ball led to a George Carmont try after just eight minutes while the home side was trapped in its own in-goal on several occasions after failing to effectively diffuse the bombing raids.

Some clever work from Paul Gallen got the Sharks back into the contest with the NSW Origin backrower scoring one try and setting up another for fellow backrower Lance Thompson before Brian Carney cut the gap to two just before the break.

Both sides started poorly in the second stanza with rival forwards Adam Woolnough and Reece Williams trading tries, Sharks coach Stuart Raper critical of his side's inability to take advantage of a series of dropped balls inside their own half by the visitors.

"We're playing at a certain level but it's not getting us a victory," Raper said.

"This game's all about winning and we're not doing that at the moment.

"We've got to realise that, the players have got to realise that, sometimes doing so much is good but it's not good enough."

The Sharks could be without Greg Bird for some time, the in form backrower suffering a suspected broken rib late in the contest.

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