Sometimes when the chips are down in rugby league, the best way to get back in front is through pure brute force.

And while Royce Hunt is not the biggest name in the NRL, he is one of the most powerful forwards when he’s on his game and he had the best of his career at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night to power Cronulla to a comeback win over the Broncos.

The Sharks had everything against them in this match with star halfback Nicho Hynes rested due to the calf injury he carried into Origin on Wednesday night and after trailing 12-4 at half-time, they were 40 minutes away from a third straight defeat.

But with Hunt playing like a man possessed, they savaged the Broncos with a three-try feeding frenzy early in the second half to register their gutsiest win of the season and reclaim top spot from Melbourne, if only momentarily with the Storm likely to sink Newcastle on Sunday at AAMI Park.

Hunt becomes the hunter

Brisbane were cruising at 12-4 up when Hunt entered the fray with just six minutes left in the first half.

When Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon benched the Samoan international 13 minutes into the second stanza, the visitors were up 22-12 and plenty of Broncos were bruised and battered after trying to contain the rampaging forward.

Hunt belted his higher-profiled opponents in attack and defence – he made five tackle breaks in his mid-game whirlwind and changed the momentum of the match.

When players talk about the value of competition for spots it is often a cliched response. But Hunt is the result of that selection squeeze at the Sharks.

He has been relegated to NSW Cup this season such is the embarrassment of riches that Fitzgibbon has with his pack but Hunt is more than up to NRL standard and after his Bronco busting display, he won’t be missing out on the game-day line-up anytime soon.

Hunt was given a five-minute encore at the end of the match to help the Sharks seal the deal but rarely has a player who spent 55 minutes on the bench had such an impact.

“My instructions were to go out and do my job – to wreak havoc and get us on the front foot, get us on a roll,” he told Fox League on the sidelines.

Broncos fail to rise to the challenge

The worst thing that could have happened to Brisbane was the fact that they held a 12-4 lead after the first period.

They were the slightly better team but whether it was complacency or the absence of Reece Walsh on top of Adam Reynolds being on the sidelines long term but when the going got tought, the Brisbane underbelly was exposed.

Brisbane opened the scoring in the 12th minute when Jordan Riki stood in a tackle and offloaded for Kotoni Staggs to make a break, Billy Walters to capitalise on the quick play-the-ball and Patrick Carrigan backing up to score just the third try of his career.

Cronulla hit back when Siosifa Talakai, elevated to the starting side for second-rower Teig Wilton (shoulder), barrelled his way through the defence down the left edge and then after being tackled close to the line, he was on the end of a helter-skelter sequence.

A Jock Madden kick ricochet put Tyson Smoothy in the mix to score late in the first half but it was all one-way traffic when the teams returned for the second stanza.

A handling error from Tristan Sailor, filling in at fullback for Walsh, gifted Cronulla a scrum close to the line and winger Sione Katoa isolated Selwyn Cobbo to touch down for the ninth time this season.

Braydon Trindall developed a case of white line fever, the good kind, to dummy past Brendan Piakura and sprint to the stripe and when Sailor fumbled a bomb, Blayke Brailey cashed in for the Sharks to suddenly be up by 10 by the 10-minute mark of the second half.

Brisbane’s woes worsened when Riki suffered a facial cut and Staggs limped off with a knee problem which could damage his chances of replacing Joseph Suaalii at right centre for NSW in Origin II at the MCG on June 26 although he was able to return in the closing stages.

Deine Mariner looked like he would bridge the gap with five minutes left to put the sniff of a comeback win in the Broncos’ nostrils but Trindall streaked across to ankle tap the flying winger and fullback Will Kennedy bundled him into touch in yet another sign of Cronulla’s unyielding commitment to a thoroughly impressive victory.

Cronulla had started to kill their reputation for being flat-track bullies by beating the Storm in Melbourne and the Roosters but hit a hiccup when they were flogged 42-0 by Penrith and went down last week to Parramatta.

But if they can knock off a fellow premiership heavyweight like the Broncos in Brisbane, it’s hard to argue that they are anything but true title contenders.