Lake Albert catching Tolland on points with 2-1 win on Sunday afternoon

And lift they did, running out 2-1 winners over the second-placed Wolves in an entertaining match.

Co-captain Robert Fry said the talk this week around the club had been about effort and intensity, and it was rewarding to see that talk become action at Henwood Park.

"We didn't lose any points [last week] so it's probably turned out to be a good thing because we had a serious chat about intensity," Fry said.

"We lacked intensity at the start of last game, we had a serious chat about that at half-time last week, then again all through this week, and it showed."

The discussions were heard loud and clear with the Sharks up and about before the game had even started.

Fry said the side has been struggling with conceding early goals recently, and it was something they wanted to avoid against a particularly strong competition.

MORE LOCAL SPORT NEWS

"We've been working on our preparation for the game, and it was something the boys were really focusing on, being ready to go and pumped up from that very first whistle," he said.

"After that initial bit of intensity I feel like both teams really came into the game after that first 20 minutes, you can't keep that high intensity for the whole match but I thought the first half was outstanding. "

While neither side were able to find the back of the net in the first half, an outstanding pass to Justin Curran just metres from the goal line got scoring underway in the 57^th minute.

It didn't take long for Muzban Sulaiman to seal the game with an incredible solo effort in the 75^th minute, drawing Tolland keeper Eli Abbas from his line to give himself a shot at open goal.

Sulaiman was among Fry's best, alongside Christopher Durman and Natheer Al Hsasn who seemed to be everywhere all at once.

Not only pleased to have earned the win, Fry was happy with the overall display of skill in the game, complementing both his opposition and the referee for their work.

"It was a really good game, it was probably the best game of footy we've played in this year, the quality from both sides was outstanding," he said.

After a hard hitting first five minutes, both teams fell into their rhythm and the game continued with good discipline from both sides.

"I thought both teams were really well disciplined, I thought for the most part the respect for the referees was great, and I thought the referee did a really good job actually," he said.

"He kept a lid on things, he probably had an opportunity to give a couple of yellow cards to both teams in the first 15 minutes and he didn't, if he had of done that, he would have been in trouble for the rest of the game, so it was really sensible and was a good performance from him."

With Hanwood now unreachable on points, Fry said this win was exceptionally important for the Sharks, who are chasing down second place.

Lake Albert 2 d Tolland 1 at Henwood Park.

Leeton United 7 d South Wagga 0 at Wagga Showgrounds.

Young 5 d Cootamundra 0 at O'Connor Park.

Hanwood 2 d Wagga United 0 at Hanwood.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: