Cronulla joined Manly and Melbourne atop the NRL ladder after a gutsy 28-14 win over South Sydney at Toyota Stadium.

The Sharks overcame a heavily lop-sided penalty count to lead 12-8 at halftime before proving too classy after the break in the five-tries-to-two win.

Centre Ben Pomeroy scored twice in the first half while Luke Covell, Brett Seymour and David Simmons also had tries for the home side.

Beau Falloon and fullback Nathan Merritt scored Souths' only tries in a loss that ended any faint finals hopes they may have had entering the round 22 clash.

The win saw Cronulla move alongside the Sea Eagles and Storm on 32 competition points in a wide-open race for the minor premiership with four rounds remaining.

It also virtually assured them a top-four spot and a home semi-final following fifth-placed Brisbane's loss to the New Zealand Warriors in Auckland.

Cronulla would have been delighted to go into halftime four points in front after being on the wrong end of referee Ben Cummins' 10-1 penalty count.

The Sharks were repeatedly penalised for infringements around the ruck and some dubious high shots, with frustrated skipper Paul Gallen having a running battle with Cummins.

The referee was booed off the field at halftime by a vocal crowd of 12,618 and the Sharks finally seemed to get a break in the second half with the penalty count improving to 12-6.

It was only their second penalty of the game three minutes after halftime that led to Covell's try out wide, set up by a fine cut-out ball from fullback Brett Kearney.

Seymour then sliced through some poor defence in the 54th minute before Simmons intercepted a pass to race 30 metres to score and put the result beyond doubt with 20 minutes to go.

Merritt crossed in the 64th minute to give Souths some hope of a miraculous comeback, but they were ultimately let down by their inability to convert their chances into points all night.

Rookie halfback Chris Sandow was again impressive on a losing side, giving Souths plenty of spark in attack, nailing a 40-20 kick in the first half and almost getting another in the second, while closing close to scoring from a clever chip-and-chase early in the game.

Sharks coach Ricky Stuart was furious with the first-half penalty count and said he would have been willing to cop a $10,000 fine from the NRL had his team lost.

"It'd cost me a lot of money if we had have got beaten because I would've unloaded," Stuart said.

"That could have lost us the game."

Stuart did not single out Cummins for criticism but said the use of "tip sheets", on which referees are given particular aspects of a team's game to crack down on, was a distraction.

"Referee's have got to get rid of tip sheets, it's distracting their line of thought and it's distracting their performances," Stuart said.

"They'll tell you that they haven't got tip sheets but believe me, they have.

"It (refereeing) is a tough job, but they're making it tougher for themselves by having these stupid tip sheets.

"They pick a couple of little things in the game previously which they 'so-call' review and they knit-pick their way through a game.

"It's disappointing we have to talk about it, I haven't done it for two, two-and-a-half years, talk about referees, but I'm just happy we got to the two points.

"We handled a lot of adversity tonight."

Souths coach Jason Taylor revealed after the loss several of his players, including Issac Luke, Michael Greenfield, Craig Wing, Beau Champion and John Sutton, all carried injuries into the match.

"It wasn't a very good performance at all," Taylor said.

"The opposition were way too good for us."

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