“I just said,‘he’s our guy. He’s our man’,” Sharks captain Cameron McInnes said of his message to Hynes. “We’re all behind him and we’ll do great things with him leading us. Nothing’s changed.”

Said Crichton:“The next few weeks is probably going to be big for him. He’s probably going to be the only guy that can bring himself out of that,and the team he’s got as well. Those top calibre players can do it. There’s no doubt he will come back bigger and better.”

The Sharks were left to rue another slow start as early tries to Viliame Kikau and Mahoney,who also scuffled with Hynes on the stroke of half-time,opened up a 12-point Canterbury lead inside the first 14 minutes.

But having fought their way back into the game and taken the lead through Trindall’s try off a miraculous Ronaldo Mulitalo kick,prop Toby Rudolf hauled down Bulldogs utility Bailey Hayward to set up Burton’s simple penalty goal five minutes from time,levelling the scores.

Burton missed two two-point field goal attempts in the dying minutes of the match,with both kicks just arcing to the right side of the posts. The second,as the full-time siren blared,was a booming 46-metre attempt,which he was convinced was going to be the match-winner.

It was a case of third time lucky as the Bulldogs climbed to fifth on the ladder.

“It’s a bit of a goldfish memory,” Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo said. “He’s just so brave. It’s not easy to miss a couple and keep going after it. He puts in the hours at training and then we back him.

“[The game] was hanging in the balance and could have gone either way. We’ve lost a couple of those this year and it was nice to get one our way.”

Said Fitzgibbon:“If we play like that tonight and ice our moments,we’ll win plenty of games. I thought there was a lot more to be pleased about tonight. Before the bye,not so much.”