Canberra have kept their finals heartbeat ticking at least another week after knocking off reigning premiers Cronulla 30-12 at Southern Cross Group Stadium.

It was the Raiders of 2016 on Saturday night, dominating the Sharks through the middle as they overcame the second-half sin-binning of Josh Papalii to stay within sight of the top eight.

And the news could get worse for the Sharks after star Jack Bird trudged from the field with a shoulder problem late in the game.

The Raiders were leading 24-8 with half an hour to go when an opportunistic line break from Bird ended in Gerard Beale finishing off a 50-metre movement.

Cronulla had an opportunity to crank up the pressure further when Papalii was sinbinned for a professional foul on long-time nemesis Paul Gallen six minutes later.

But the comeback was shortlived as the Sharks were penalised four times while holding a one-man advantage, with three of them resulting in the Raiders killing time with penalty goals.

By the time Papalii returned, the Raiders slowly extended their lead to 18 points to put a dent in the Sharks’ top four hopes.

For the Raiders, the win lifts them to within two points of eighth-placed St George Illawarra and ninth-placed Penrith, who meet Wests Tigers on Sunday.

Cronulla appeared set for a cruisy night in front of a 11,639 crowd when they raced to an 8-0 lead on a Sosaia Feki converted try and Valentine Holmes penalty goal in the opening ten minutes.

But from there it was all Raiders, who ran in 24 points in as many minutes.

Papalii started the rot when he powered over from close range in the 15th minute, and in the blink of an eye the Raiders had the lead on Jordan Rapana’s try off a Feki fumble.

Rapana then made it back-to-back tries courtesy of Joey Leilua’s bullet pass from dummy half to move within one of NRL leading tryscorer Alex Johnston.

Raiders forward Elliott Whitehead produced the backbreaker when his offload allowed Josh Hodgson to dummy over on the stroke of halftime, giving the visitors a 16-point lead.