Cronulla five-eighth Greg Bird says the Sharks will unleash a secret weapon in their bid to upset an uptight Wests Tigers on Saturday night.

The eighth-placed Tigers have lost four of their last five NRL matches as they desperately try to slot an underdone Benji Marshall into their system at the business end of the season.

A loss at Toyota Park could mean the 2005 premiers drop out of the top eight with two rounds remaining.

The improving Sharks finally snapped a seven-match losing streak last week and remain a mathematical chance of sneaking into the finals.

"We've got to depend on a lot of other teams but we're not really focused on it," Bird told AAP.

"We're just focused on finishing our season and if we win all three games it puts us in a good position to make the semis but that's not our main goal.

"Our main goal is to make sure that we win our games and put on a good performance."

And Bird said the Sharks would leave the worrying about the finals to the Tigers.

"I think we'll just throw it around again and try and have a bit of fun," he said.

"I think we play our best football when we're passing the ball around and getting the ball out to our outside backs."

The NSW State of Origin pivot said a savage injury toll for the Sharks had been the turning point for the normally intense Ricky Stuart allowing them to chill out.

"Our top 11 players I think were out and the boys just said, `let's go out and have a bit of fun, no-one really expects anything of us, no-one expects us to turn up and have much to offer but we can just go out and hopefully catch them by surprise'."

That attitude took them to within seven points of second-placed Manly in round 19, a heart-breaking one-point loss to front-runners Melbourne two weeks ago and, finally, a 25-24 win over third-placed Parramatta last week.

"We got in a little bit of rut there in the middle of the year," Bird said.

"I think we were a bit too worried about playing the full structured style of play - bash it up and kick it and I think that's when we lost a fair few games.

"When we got back to passing the ball around and having a bit of fun, that's when we've been pretty successful lately."

The Tigers, who have won their past seven matches against the Sharks, are hoping linchpin Robbie Farah will overcome a hip injury in time for Saturday's match.

Hooker Farah, who is desperate to play, will be checked again on Saturday with Stuart Flanagan his replacement if he is ruled out.

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