Co-captain Wade Graham concedes time is running out for the real Cronulla to show their teeth in an NRL season disrupted throughout by injuries.

Graham says fielding a different team every week has stifled the Sharks, who are clinging to eighth place and still to play the sort of football promised by their roster.

Graham doesn’t want to rely on other results to make the finals, meaning they’ll need to beat the Warriors on Saturday and repeat the dose against the Wests Tigers and Canberra to be safe.

However, they’re yet to win more than twice in a row this year, something experienced ball-playing forward Graham attributes to the constant medical merry-go-round.

This weekend Matt Moylan (hamstring) makes way, forcing another shift to fullback for Josh Dugan, while Andrew Fifita (knee) is named on the bench after missing last week’s patchy 18-12 win over St George Illawarra.

“It’s not just personnel changes but we’ve had to change the style in which we play,” Graham said.

“You lose Matty Moylan and you replace him with Dugan, they’re two different types of fullbacks so your style has to adjust.

“I’ve been missing for long chunks of the year. You throw in another back-rower and our style has to adjust again.

“We haven’t consistently had the same 17 on the park to be able to nail down our style and go ‘righto, this is us’.”

Graham is reading little into the Warriors’ thumping 42-6 loss to the Sydney Roosters which effectively ended the Kiwi club’s play-off hopes.

He is wary of the potency of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, pointing to the fullback’s influence when the Warriors secured a last-gasp 19-18 win in Wellington when they met in Wellington last month.

That was a fifth-straight Sharks loss but they’ve battled back to win three of their next four.

“We’re still not in a great position. The inconsistency throughout our season has put us in this position,” Graham said.

“We’re backs against the wall and we probably have to win all three games and that’s a hard task. So if we do get there, we’ll be in a good frame of mind to give it a real shake.”