The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales.

Founded by Peter Burns, Cronulla debuted in 1967 wearing a sky blue jersey adorned with a white V and red numbers on the back, at the then club home ground of Sutherland Oval, under the captaincy of multiple premiership-winner Monty Porter and the coaching of Ken Kearney.

Cronulla were without suspended stars Greg Pierce and Dane Sorensen in both games, while hooker John McMartin, fullback Mick Mullane and Barry Andrews were all injured for the replay.

Gibson left the club in good shape in 1987, with the promise fulfilled in 1988 when Cronulla won the minor premiership, led by veteran second-rower Gavin Miller, who was named Dally M Player of the Year, and Rothmans Medal winning halfback, Barry Russell.

Cronulla again dropped into a period of poor form and financial trouble in 1990, but the appointment as coach of rugby league Immortal, Arthur Beetson, in 1992 helped turn the on-field problems around.

Cronulla-Sutherland easily accounted for the Brisbane Broncos in the quarter-final, and led 8–0 in the grand final qualifier against arch rivals the St George Illawarra Dragons before eventually losing 8–24.

The first year was almost an on-field success, as Anderson retained the core of John Lang's team, and the Sharks again reached the grand final qualifier.

Steve Rogers, the CEO of the Cronulla Sharks and a former club legend, died on 3 January 2006 at the age of 51 of a "mixture of prescription drugs and alcohol".

On 21 April 2006, after much work and lobbying carried out by then-Chairman Barry Pierce and Sharks board member Brian Quinn, Peter Costello, on behalf of the Federal Government, announced they would be funding a $9.6 million upgrade to Toyota Park.

A missed penalty goal in the dying seconds of the match would have sent the game into extra-time, allowing the chance for Cronulla to equal the biggest single-game comeback in the history of top-level rugby league in Australia.

Asset-rich, owning its stadium and the surrounding land, but with cash flow problems due to its low average home gate and poor on-field performances in recent seasons, the club announced plans for a partial relocation to the Central Coast, which was rebuffed by the NRL.

It was to split home games for the 2010–14 seasons among: In May 2009, an ABC Four Corners investigation revealed the Sharks players involvement in a group sex scandal on a pre-season tour in 2002.

One of these losses caused great controversy as the Sharks, playing against Manly, were forced to field just 12 men for most of the game after Luke Douglas was sent off by referee Phil Haines for a careless high tackle.

The addition of Wade Graham at five-eighth and New Zealand international Jeremy Smith to a pack already containing two origin players promised an end to the Sharks' status as cellar-dwellers.

Missing a number of first-team starters due to injury, Cronulla then lost five in a row to the New Zealand Warriors (26-18), Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles (19-13), Newcastle Knights (24-20), North Queensland Cowboys (30-12), and South Sydney (31-12), dropping down the table, from 9th to 15th.

While the Sharks were taking a much needed break skipper Paul Gallen led the NSW Blues Origin team to a memorable 18–8 victory over Queensland.

The next four weeks saw a turnaround of the club's performance, with victory over the Gold Coast Titans 36-12 and the South Sydney Rabbitohs 24–4, before they took revenge against the Canberra Raiders 26–12.

Cronulla lost their two props for the 2012 season, Origin representative Kade Snowden to Newcastle and Luke Douglas signing for the Gold Coast Titans.

The club won 6 matches in a row for the first time in over a decade and after 8 rounds were sitting third on the table as the highest placed Sydney based franchise.

At the beginning of Season 2013, Irvine stood down as chairman on learning of the questionable operational and duty of care practices of coach Shane Flanagan, and Darren Mooney during 2011 which exposed the club to the ASADA scandal.

Flanagan returned in 2013, a season in which the Sharks qualified for the competition semi finals, before he was forced to serve a 9-month suspension handed down by the NRL for breaches of basic governance and duty of care practices, thus validating the strong ethical stance made by Irvine and the board in March 2013.

Sharp again took over the reins, before resigning mid season the week after the club's greatest comeback victory, with the team coming from 22 nil down to beat the Brisbane Broncos 24–22.

Just one day after Carney was stood down by Cronulla CEO Steve Noyce, Sharp resigned as interim head coach and was replaced by James Shepherd.

In the final round of the year, Cronulla-Sutherland lost 28–16 against Melbourne and the Gold Coast leapfrogged them into eighth place after they defeated the New Zealand Warriors.

The record attendance for Sutherland Oval was set in the last Cronulla game played at the ground when 12,578 saw the Sharks go down 32–4 to Canterbury Bankstown, then known as the Berries, now Bulldogs on 16 June 1968 NSWRFL season.

On 4 July 2013, the Cronulla Sharks announced their new stadium naming rights partner Remondis, an international waste solutions and management company.

Southern Cross Group Stadium has a capacity of 22,000 people with the record attendance of 22,302 being set for a game against local rivals the St George Illawarra Dragons on 1 May 2004[29] The Cronulla Sutherland Leagues Club is known as Sharkies, and is located on Captain Cook Drive at Woolooware.

Round 2 of the 2008 NRL season saw the sides meet at Olympic Park in Melbourne, and Cronulla was able to reverse the result by the same scoreline via a Brett Kimmorley field goal.

Melbourne began the 2012 NRL season with nine straight victories, before a Paul Gallen-less Sharks pipped them 12-10 thanks to a Jeremy Smith try and clutch conversion from Todd Carney.

The match featured a controversial moment when Melbourne player Billy Slater made an illegal tackle on Cronulla winger Sosaia Feki while he was in the act of scoring, therefore constituting a professional foul.