Woolford, son of legendary Raider Simon Woolford, affectionately nicknamed 'Germ', had an impressive debut in the 30-10 win over Cronulla.

In 38 minutes at Lang Park he set up two tries, had one line break, made 19 tackles and ran a total of 34 metres.

Woolford was not in the frame at all last Tuesday when the extended team list was named, having only joined Canberra from the Newtown Jets a few weeks ago.

The 25-year-old had played extensively in NSW Cup but when Canberra's Adam Elliott was struck down with a bad case of the flu, Stuart had no hesitation in calling up Woolford and making him the starter ahead of Tom Starling.

"That was the confidence I had in bringing him into the team," Stuart said.

"He had good control around the ruck. There was never any lack of confidence in Zac."

The coach said he was "very happy" for the youngster, with Woolford's dad sharing an emotional embrace with his son after the game.

"It was the responsibility of all of us to make his first game a memorable one and I'm sure he'll remember this one," Stuart said.

"He had a wonderful contribution. He was very good tonight.

"He probably could have played more minutes at the start of the game but I knew I was going to need him at the back end."

The Sharks lost fullback Will Kennedy through suspension before round 10, and Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon chose to move in-form halfback Nicho Hynes into the No.1 jumper against Canberra.

But the decision didn't work well for the Sharks. Hynes was still putting in kicks and directing their attack, however, the reshuffle dulled the impact of the top-four side.

In Fox Sports' commentary booth Corey Parker identified a "definite clunk" from the Sharks' lateral play throughout the match.

"He's played alright at fullback before so I thought he was going to do it again," Fitzgibbon said of shifting Hynes to fullback.

"Something wasn't right there with our combinations."

Cronulla's coach said it best in summarising this gutsy win by the Raiders, leading from start to finish and overcoming three sin bins.

"They were spirited. I felt like they just out-competed us," Fitzgibbon said.

"They were a bit more physical, found a bit more want and attitude."

There were many contenders for man-of-the-match in one of the Raiders' most complete performances of the season, but an honourable mention could have also gone out to the sun.

That fireball in the sky's relentless glare into the eyes of Sione Katoa as the Sharks winger looked up with dread at each Matt Frawley bomb was a major advantage for the men in green.

It had Katoa rattled so much that even when the sun went down he appeared hesitant to contest a leaping grab.

Canberra captain Elliott Whitehead said Frawley's kicking approach was rehearsed in training, but no word on whether the skipper or coach Ricky Stuart had predicted the sun to play the role it did.

"It was something we spoke about all week," Whitehead said.

"We wanted to kick to that left corner. Frawls did a great job against them this week. We want to continue this run now and back it up against Souths."

Joe Tapine's 150^th game was celebrated in style by friends and family in the crowd after Canberra's win over Cronulla.

A small group of green-clad supporters in Brisbane performed a Haka with Kiwi international Tapine in special scenes.

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