As the face of an underachieving St George Illawarra side for over eight years, Trent Barrett thought he had experienced all there was when it came to the lows of the NRL.

Grand final losses, sideline face slaps from coaches and even a sanction for a few friendly push-ups in a bar while clad in nothing but his briefs.

But never before has it come to this.

Now as a key figure in a Cronulla club on the brink of extinction, Barrett has a new perspective of just how bad things can get as he prepares to face his former club for just the second time at Toyota Stadium on Saturday night.

"It has been hard, it's something I haven't really experienced before in my time in footy," Barrett said.

For starters there's the $9 million debt that has the Sharks on the brink of financial ruin, a situation only intensified by the exposing of the group sex scandal which occurred on the club's 2002 pre-season tour of New Zealand.

Then there's player behaviour - Brett Seymour's boozy night out which cost him a two-game suspension to this week's positive drug test that threatens to ruin the career of former international forward Reni Maitua.

And finally there's the results - eight straight losses following a first-up win over Penrith way back in March.

"It's not nice," said Barrett, who joined his teammates in camp in the south coast town of Kiama this week as coach Ricky Stuart attempted to shield the group from the media spotlight.

"But I say we're lucky that we've got a group of guys here that really dig in for each other and are still trying really hard.

"They're trying to be upbeat at training ... that's probably the hardest thing, we're working so hard and really coming away with nothing at the moment."

Nothing's really gone right for Barrett since joining the Dragons' arch-rivals, with injuries to his neck, calf, back and now a badly cut mouth all doing their best to slow the former Test representative.

In his first game against the Dragons back in round three, Barrett left the field on a stretcher before spending a nervous few hours in a St George hospital following a neck injury which left him without feeling for some time in his arm.

"That certainly didn't end the way I wanted it to, but in saying that we were in that game for 80 minutes," Barrett recalled.

The Dragons, fresh of their controversial win over the Bulldogs last weekend, are wary of a wounded opponent.

In contrast to the Sharks troubles, it's all been plain sailing for the red and whites with the club level on points with competition leaders the Bulldogs and celebrating the re-signing of three key players in Ben Creagh, Dean Young and Beau Scott within the last ten days.

"They've been in camp for a week so obviously they'll be ready for a big game and so are we," Dragons skipper Ben Hornby said.

"It's a local derby and we'd expect nothing less."

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