Facing St George Illawarra may be just another game for Trent Barrett nowadays, but the Cronulla five-eighth believes a win over his former side in Sharks colours on Sunday would be a special moment.

Barrett is yet to taste victory over the Dragons and although Wayne Bennett's side sit top of the NRL ladder, the NSW playmaker believes the in-form Sharks have the confidence to cause an upset at Toyota Stadium having won two of their last three games.

Cronulla have shed their tag as the NRL's whipping boys, climbing to 12th spot on the table, just four points behind the eighth-placed Brisbane Broncos, and Barrett said the semi-finals are now a realistic proposition.

"We had a good win a fortnight ago and now come back off the bye, as do the Dragons as well, so it is an important game for us, we haven't given up on making the semi-finals and we are just out of the eight at the moment and think we can make it," Barrett said.

"We are at the halfway stage of the season and momentum is important now, you don't want to have to be winning your last five or six games of the season to qualify for the finals, and we have pinpointed having a good month of footy and winning our next three or four games."

The Sharks were hammered 38-0 by Wayne Bennett's side earlier in the season and Barrett admitted the players are using the memories of that humiliation as inspiration.

"Obviously it is still in our memory what happened down at WIN Stadium but we just have to worry about ourselves," he said.

"We know they are a very good side and are on top of the comp for a reason. But we have done some pretty good things in recent months and we can cause them problems."

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