Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs

montoya is bigger garbage then holland, holland was a noticeable upgrade on him last year and that remains the case but neither should be in first grade unless your team is in injury crisis

i have 2 sets of teams we should go with

team 1 (the burn it to the ground, change everything, we are a disaster, try somthing fanatical team)
Meaney
Smith
Hoppa
CHN
Holland
foz
lewis
Fualalo
Cogger
Napa
RFM
Martin
Jackson

Ogden
Smith
Nu Brown
elliot


or the more measured team

1. Hoppa (meaney was awful in ressies )
2. Crighton
3. Smith (get him closer to the ball)
4. CHN (not a centre but atleast belond in FG unlike montoya)
5. Holland
Foz
Lewis
Napa
JMK/lichaa (it is what it is )
Fualalo
martin
RFM
Jackson (it probably is worth trying but i think its unlikely to be somthing we stick with long term)

Ogden
Smith
JMK/lichaa (spew)
Tolman


i think montoya and sue being dropped should be easy calls, elliot and tolman despite being leaders are struggling to stick in the team and ogden needs to get a run

Which is why we celebrate in March.

The Bulldogs have made the fewest errors (14) and have the best completion rate (83%) in the NRL through two rounds. Stats confirm you can't make errors when you don't have the ball.

Well completion rate can still be poor and possession would have been pretty even against the eels so not sure that joke has much behind it lol

It does show how over rated that stat can be. Think I read last year roosters were one of the worst completion rates in the comp too

if your defense is brilliant than it doesn't matter as much if you make mistakes with the ball.

+ you're also unlikely to score a try with aiden tolman taking a 4th tackle hit up near the try line but at least he won't drop the ball!



pay dropped the axe, he stated that ressie players were putting the pressure on but both meaney and okunbur had shockers and smith was quiet. ogded and martin have been playing well but i'm not expecting much improvement

my views on the changes

Fullback: we probably weakened this position going to meaney but long term probably still the right call

Wing: okunbur is unlikely to be an upgrade on crighton but being probably won't be a downgrade either and fans will find him easier to root for atleast lol

Centre: i feel like anything at this point would have been an upgrade on montoya, hoppa still better suited to a back 3 position but we need him at centre

right edge: CHN was strong game 1, can understand him getting promoted

Bench:
Martin was always gonna get another looks, think other dogs fans will see he is barely an upgrade on the dropped RFM tho.

Smith picked over fualalo is a bit of a desperation move but eh

Ogden picked over sue is probably the best change, ogden looked the goods last year and sue has struggled big time, we were never gonna beat the eels but he got them in front much earlier then they needed to be with some poor plays

We did good

Tigers were obviously off their game but thought we played a great first half, had quite a few calls go against us and get them into good position only for us to turn them away and then once we got on top we put a few tries on.

Not naive to think that it changes our season outlook to much, some tigers players had absolute shockers including mbye who was doing his best to earn whatever we are still paying him but at the very worst we looked like a first grade team and we looked well below that in previous weeks

Positives:
CHN was great and clearly our most dangerous edge with the ball
Elliot was great off the bench, that role suits him well
Okunbur handled his debut well
Foran played his best game as a bulldog, He was Awesome


Storm next week will probably make us look like ressie players again but still good to know we can be competive against middle of the table teams atleast occasionally

Young idris looked good, went looking for work when he wasn’t sucking in the big ones. He definitely needs more time which he’s obviously not gonna get which is a shame

he's been in the ressie team for a quite a while now, i think he's as ready as he is ever gonna be

he does often has pretty bad defensive read blunders in ressies, was lucky enough to not be tested there yesterday, he'll have some moments where he will struggle, no doubt

but good to see him have a quality game for a debut. his height should land us a try or 2 aswell with a bit of luck

they played with a bit of energy too which had been missing the last few weeks. Foran deciding to have a crack was great too, he played like the foran of old.

Foz was probably our best and i honestly thought one of our best last week too, he is pretty easy to be critical of when we struggle because of his past and his fat contract but i genuinely believe that mentally he looks pretty good atm and it shows

physically, his body is still breaking, i'd be shocked if he isn't forced to sit out a week soon enough, he aint getting through 20+ games this year, i'd be surprised if cracked 18 games tbh

Foz our for 3 months

I feel for him but it’s clear his body ain’t up for it, gotta think retirenment is gonna be in the cards after his fat contract ends next year

surely they would be pushing for a medical retirement

for a high ankle sprain ?

most of his other ailments are pre signing with us too


not every team can get a watmough judgement lol


it would obviously suit us cap wise but i don't think its on the cards, he'll play (4-8 games) 2020 and then if he wants to keep playing, he'll have to do it for cheaper regardless of where he plays but you've gotta think that he decides to hang them up if he cops another serious injury next year

Pieman wrote:surely they would be pushing for a medical retirement

Slightly off topic... but Dragons would be chasing one for Widdop aswell, yeah?

Did someone say Whatmough ?

ryno_ wrote:

Slightly off topic... but Dragons would be chasing one for Widdop aswell, yeah?

isn't he going to the ESL next year ? hard to argue a medical retirement when the players plans to play on next season

leaguegod wrote:


isn't he going to the ESL next year ? hard to argue a medical retirement when the players plans to play on next season

Needs 2 shoulders to play though. It wouldn't be hard to argue that's it for him.

leaguegod wrote:for a high ankle sprain ?

most of his other ailments are pre signing with us too


not every team can get a watmough judgement lol


it would obviously suit us cap wise but i don't think its on the cards, he'll play (4-8 games) 2020 and then if he wants to keep playing, he'll have to do it for cheaper regardless of where he plays but you've gotta think that he decides to hang them up if he cops another serious injury next year

yeah just depends what the injury is - if hes at the point where another injury is too much for him to mentally recover from surely they would have a case for a medical retirement. They wouldn't just pick one injury on its own, and mental health comes into it surely.
That's all assuming he wants to retire, why would he when he can make the kind of money he is making and has an injury that he can physically recover from.

ryno_ wrote:

Needs 2 shoulders to play though. It wouldn't be hard to argue that's it for him.

would all depend if he wanted to or not. At his age you would think he doesnt want to.