Cronulla skipper Paul Gallen claims he was forced to call a team meeting this week after the embarrassment of last week's loss to Manly spilled over into an ill-tempered training session.

Gallen called his teammates together in the Toyota Park dressing room on Wednesday night in a bid to ease concerns following the 34-6 humiliation at the hands of the Sea Eagles.

The meeting with Manly was seen as Cronulla's biggest test of the season, a match with finals-like intensity in front of a huge crowd with top spot on the ladder the spoils for the victor.

But the match was all but over after half an hour, the failed litmus test prompting talk of another late season fade-out by the Sharks who have made a habit in recent years of turning a useful position at the halfway mark into another year without September action.

But Gallen said he told his teammates that losing to the side on top of the ladder was not a sign that the Sharks were about to choke again.

"We just seemed a little bit edgy during (the training session)," Gallen said.

"I just got the boys together after training a told everyone to relax a bit.

"I told them how it was going to be coming from everywhere how we choke and that and I told them what's happened in the past has got nothing to do with our team at the moment.

"It's one loss, we're still equal second on the table. It was a bad night, we're pretty embarrassed about the way we played.

"We're just putting it down to a hiccup and the only way we can silence all the critics is to go out there and win this weekend."

Sharks prop Ben Ross said he was hopeful the young Sharks could turn the loss into a positive, the 80 minutes from hell the Sea Eagles provided a good indication of what the side could expect in the big games later in the year.

Ross admitted the embarrassment of the Sea Eagles loss was still playing on his mind, and said he wasn't surprised when tempers flared at training.

"A loss always weighs on your mind, especially with all the media giving it to us about (our poor late season record in) past seasons," Ross said.

"It's hard not to hear about it.

"I know how the boys are feeling at the moment, at training people's tensions were shorter than normal because we did have a loss.

"It's how you react to the loss ... the boys are going to learn a lot from it."

The Sharks were expected to take the field as selected against Newcastle on Saturday night with hooker Isaac De Gois training strongly after failing to finish the Sea eagles clash due to a rib complaint.

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