Punt them *

Today reinforced my decision that Danny Fualalo is not a first grader. 


I know Tualau has a penalty or two in him, but surely he has aggro & go forward than what Fualalo dishes out...!

Other option is Renouf T.... how did he go in reggies? 


Souths had way more go forward off their bench than we did today. 

Unfortunately our reserve grade doesn't have what we need.  Experience in vital positions.  The return of Foran and Napa will help but sensible recruitment and time are the way forward.

Bulldogs vs souths
1 ,2 ,3

toleman
ogden
henry penerara

stiil say 
okunbar needs more time in the 
reggies his ball control isnt nrl ready 
holland he as well his defence needs improving
Cogger well he is only a reggies player

Reimis Smith to centre.  We have the worst centre pairing in the comp. 

Taulau is worse than Fualalo.
 Renouf always had great potential just needs time to adapt to NRL.

The Souths game had slow play the balls and a skinny 10.
We showed some welcome defensive grit, but struggled to get it together in attack, but 30% posession in the first half.

The loss to the Storm was our best performance to date. We have struggled with the start in the last 2 games.
Best hope of further improvement is young guys, no point in persisting with players that don't have it.

Good suggestion, who would you have on the wings?

Mutt and Jeff.  

Time to drop Lichaa off the bench. JMK played his best game at hooker yesterday I thought. Leave him out there. Bring RFM back.  We just have too many players that are just not good enough and never will be. Attracting established players without paying overs is near impossible.

  Players like Okunbor need time.  He either improves or proves he doesn't belong but he must left in 1sts to see the outcome.  We haven't got time to drop players back, it is now or never because this side cannot be the side trotted out next year.

That is the problem.
Smith is doing a good job on the wing, move him and we need a replacement.
CHN is doing a good job at 2nd row and is a bit slower.
RFM is a good replacement if he can get back to 2018 form.
At this stage I would persist with Okunbor and we definitely need a good defender inside him.
Holland to the bench in place of Lichaa is the easy change, or perhaps promote Harper.
The bare minumim is we need to split up Holland and Okunbor.

Yes I would persist with Okunbor for 3 reasons ...

1. Drop him and his manager will use that as an excuse to shop him to other clubs.
2. We need the yards, him snd Smith make good yards without that we are deeper in the hole.
3. He is still young enough to improve.

He has the size and desire to make tackles, it is just positioning and technique, needs an experienced/solid defender inside him.

Handling I suspect will always be a problem, but keep him in the team for now he has the motivation  to improve.

Really this season is more about improving players and getting young players NRL experience.
It would be great to win a few, but I'm an optimist and I can't see us making the 8. 

Getting Foran and Napa back will help a lot. The 8 is nearly impossible.  14th or higher is the new mark unfortunately.

I agree that we are not a top 8 side atm but we are a very inexperienced side with a spine that has a sum total of less than 70 first grade games between them. I must be seeing things that other BDPers aren't because to me Pay appears to be working on our defence rather than attack. This has been obvious over the last few weeks and last night our defence frustrated souffs to the point they were definitely put off their game plan and had it not been for some horrendously poor refs and bunker calls that went against us we win that one. Pay is doing the right thing.... get the D right and attack will follow.

And, while I am on the soap box, to those calling for mass changes after every game, you are showing a complete lack of patience. This sort or action will do us more harm than good and if you want to be on a winner every week then there are 15 other teams that are travelling good enough to follow.

I agree on D, but we must do something about the Holland / Okunbor combination.

I like aggressive up and in defence but we can't have the winger and centre so far out of position.

Souths game was more like a game from previous seasons, lots of wrestle, skinny 10 ... inconsistent decisions....

So while I was happy with out attitude energy and commitment in defence, we defended better against the Storm, they threw more at us and Lewis in particular made some great tackles. This game he had to content himself with bullying Sam Burgess :)

The first penalty  set the tone for the match, it was a marginal hold down (I think), if that is what it was for, much worse was let go later.

By the end of the game you could have taken the refs off the field, and nothing would have changed.

They did give the whistle a work out in the first 20 mins, usually at our expense.

Cows next week friday night 
battle for the wooden spoon
@ homebush , okunbur needs 2 go
sorry odf.......  so dose holland 
lets see if pay hears the supporters
voices you cant pick a losing team
week in week out 

All this talk about us slowing the play the ball down.  I didn't exactly need the South's players jumping up from the tackled player.  The truth is all teams want a slow play the ball in defence and a quick one in attack.  No exceptions.

Reserve grade is on Fox at 3 o'clock woohoo fans.

Bennett was in shock because we did it effectively.  Like Burgess had a sook that a halfback chopped him down multiple times poor diddums.

And said sook bouncing forward on half back after being tackled could have probably should have led to penalty to Dogs but Henry Perenara only had eyes for one team all day.

I agree about Okunbor.
He is very unique and we have to just persist with him to cut out his errors. The reason he has errors is because he looks like he is about to do something.

Just caught a replay of the game and I'm afraid there will be many games like this in the next 2 years. We really need to manage games alot better and try to control the tempo. We are quite lucky the way the ruck was officiated otherwise score could have been worse. We were unlucky with the bounce of ball (cost CHN a try).

My biggest criticism is that we arent starting games with the right attitude. We had slow line speed from the outset and coupled with silly penalties allowed them to jump on the scoreboard.

I just cannot for the life of me excuse poor line speed within the first 10min of each half - I really cant. Its not just this year....its been a problem for years. 

We have a weak roster, we know that.
We just cant be starting games or halves with a losing attitude. I really want this fixed.

Until it is, I dont want our team to be associated with the word fit.

Making the 8?
My goodness HD.....

I dont know about you HD, but I was filthy about that first penalty. Not because it was given by the refs, but because we put ourselves in position for it to be called on first set, late tackle count and with no benefit whatsoever.

It is frustrating how braindead we are this year.
Yes we have young crop of players but it's not like they have watched rugby league last week and laced on the boots this week. These guys have played the game for at least 15years. You just can't be that silly no matter how many games you've played.

Every week I see new schoolboy errors that I just shake my head.

Very unprofessional.

I'm not sure we need changes just yet BT.
Maybe get RFM in for Lichaa. 
I reckon this team can knock off the Cows, but we need to be smarter and adjust our tempo with the game is reffed and how it flows.
Need to get Meany involved in attack and players running off CHN and Ogden expecting offloads. 

If i were Pay (or any coach playing Souths next game) I would ask Annesley to instruct his refs to keep an eye out on Souths players moving off the mark and milking penalties. 

Their best exponent just retired. Pity i didnt see this play in his highlight reel....

No one could accuse you of not having a sense of melodrama.."halves with a losing attitude"...what exactly does that mean. They matched their much vaunted Souths opponents at least. The first penalty ruling was overlooked a dozen times or more. We were just unlucky. Can anyone show an overhead shot of the Alex Jonston try?

My point is that if we are not making the 8 this year we are playing to set up next year.
We could have got slightly better results by keeping Jmoz, it is a gamble but I am happy to gamble as no one rembers who finished 3rd to 16th.
I agree that we could roll the Cows, they are a struggling side like us so far this season.
On the penalty first set 99 games out of 100 this year it isn't called, the ref simply warns the player .
We do need to tidy up our game and not give away so many penalties, more wack in the tackles will help.

Foxsports nrl. 
Bulldog nick meany set 2 be out for a while

canterbury cup side ray fatalia marnier
injured after 1 minute came straight off

not looking good 

Looks like we are getting thumped in reserve grade, no big surpise some good players in the Souths side.

We can't do much about injuries, the team is well prepared and well managed.

I am curious to find out how the young fullback goes in reserves, he may have potential.

Why did we announce our top 30 NRL squad before the season even started?

I think you only had to name 28 or 29 wasn’t it?

We may not have much $$ in our cap, but clearly our backline needs strengthening ASAP, leaving that 30th spot open could’ve opened the door for a mid season signing.  


So with Meaney looking likely he’s out..... that’ll mean Hoppa to No1.... (vomit) Montoya will get a saloon passage back into the top grade. 

FMD.....