Shellharbour Sharks made a dream debut in the Illawarra Carlton League with a 28-20 win over competition heavyweights Collegians at Ron Costello Oval yesterday.Collies' loss yesterday and premiers Thirroul going down to Corrimal 10-4 on Friday night meant that both 2008 grand finalists were defeated in the first round this year."We knew we were in for a tough afternoon. Just to stick with Collies we would have been happy. The win is particularly pleasing," Shellharbour coach Peter Yatras said."Not to say we didn't have confidence in ourselves, but first game in a new competition you don't know exactly what you've got."I think now we know we've got some quality players that can compete in this competition."Collies coach Gavin Clinch was disappointed with his team's showing."We didn't play well at all. We just seemed to tackle all the first half and in the second half we just couldn't complete any sets," Clinch said.Shellharbour held an enormous territorial advantage in the first half and the only outstanding defence from Collies held them out a number of times, but the heavy defensive load in the opening term took its toll on the Dogs.The Sharks opened the scoring in the 12th minute when right winger Jarek Goebel crossed wide out for a 4-0 lead. But Collies hit back in the 25th minute from a break through the middle of the ruck by hooker Kiel Roberts who found five-eighth Adam Davidson in support and he dotted down between the posts for halfback Grant Smith to convert.Collies stretched their lead to 10-4 in the 33rd minute when, after a quick play-the-ball, Roberts scampered out of dummy-half and sent a perfect pass to centre Ryan Smith who strode over in the left corner.Three minutes from the interval, a Collies mistake proved costly as in the next set the Sharks levelled at 10-all when interchange player Anaru Grant crashed over between the posts for winger Stuart Philpot to convert.Shellharbour regained the lead 16-10 with a converted try to second-rower Daniel Jiminez in the 52nd minute, but Collies equalised six minutes later when Roberts put centre Kurt Fittler over between the posts and Grant Smith added the extras.Converted tries to hooker Hansie Schuster (63 min) and centre Lulia Lulia (67 min) gave the Sharks a 12 points buffer before Fittler was in for his second try five minutes from fulltime.Three tries to teenage winger Mitch Neilsen helped Dapto to a 24-10 win over Berkeley at Berkeley Sports Ground after leading 16-10 at half-time.The Eagles began well taking a 10-0 lead, but Dapto replied with 24 unanswered points."It was a tough type of win," Dapto coach Dean Callaway said. "We were disappointed with our first half performance particularly early in the first half."We looked to be a little bit lost in attack and we let in a couple of soft opportunities but we fixed up our ruck defence and marker defence."