THE late hit that gave Cronulla a 16-14 win over Parramatta yesterday may have a bitter-sweet ending for the Sharks, with halfback Brett Kimmorley revealing he may have suffered a fractured eye socket from Fuifui Moimoi's controversial chargedown.

On a day that the Sharks had already lost lock Greg Bird for up to two months, Kimmorley also faces time on the sidelines with X-rays today expected to show whether he has suffered a break - if depressed, it could leave him out for an extended period.

The Bulldogs-bound playmaker was icing a bloody nose from an earlier hit by Eels captain Nathan Cayless, however the eye which felt the force of the Eels interchange forward late in the game - allowing Sharks winger Luke Covell to kick the game-sealing penalty goal - had a dark shadow surrounding it, suggesting the Eels' claims (report, page 4) that Kimmorley had taken a dive may have been a little hasty.

"The nose was the Cayless incident at the start of the game," Kimmorley said. "It was Fui who got me across the eye. Obviously I got hit across the side of the face."

The injury to his eye socket is likely to be complicated to the knock to his nose, with Kimmorley saying he felt "a bit rattled". "I feel like someone's poked me in the eye," he said.

Kimmorley's reputation was defended stoutly by his teammates, including Paul Gallen, who has been the subject of diving claims in the past.

"Don't get me started," Gallen said. "Of course they're going to whinge. If it happened in the first minute, of course it would have been a penalty. No doubt about it, clear as day.

"Noddy's the toughest player in the game. He doesn't stay down. If they can show me a shot where his forearm didn't hit him in the head, they can say he lay down, but I don't think they'll be able to. For them to be saying that, that's just not right. They all know what he's like. There's no doubt, he's one of the toughest I've ever played with. It's ridiculous. There's no way in the world he laid down."

Relieved as they were to earn their fourth win in a row, some Sharks didn't believe the game had a happy ending either. Icing his nose again, Kimmorley said: "I think it's a shit way to win. It was a good game of footy."