After a convincing win in the opening group match Anthony Griffin decided to utilise his full squad against the Sharks, which saw the likes of James Tamou and Nathan Cleary on the sideline for our second game of the day.
Manaia Cherrington was first to trouble the scorers, pouncing on a loose kick after continued pressure on the Panthers defence.
The Sharks regained the ball after an error off the kick and made it count with Evans going over to score in the corner and extend the lead to 8-0.
A penalty would carry the Panthers up field and they made it count after May put Moses Leota through a gap on the line before Darren Nicholls converted as the sides went to the break with Cronulla leading 8-6.
The Panthers picked up where they left off just after the restart and it was May again with a carbon copy assist, this time to Jed Cartwright. Corey Harawira-Naera slotted the easy conversion to push the score out to 12-8.
Harawira-Naera was in the thick of the action again just moments later after some silky hands put him in a gap on the right hand side to cross for his second of the tournament. He would miss his conversion as the lead extended to eight points.
Cherrington crossed over with a minute to go reducing the gap to two and set up a grand stand finish but the Panthers defence held tough to seal a thrilling two-point victory and put themselves in a commanding position to qualify for the knockout stages.
FULL-TIME: Panthers 16 - Sharks 14
