I was sitting with 15 other non-Bulldogs (and 3 doggies) blokes in an apartment in NZ watching the game and the comments about the ref were really no different to any other game of footy. I may be in the minority here but at this time of the season in order to get the teams to get back ten, not wrestle, not backchat and not slow down the play if they have to blow the pea out then so be it. It will get us by mid-season to a point where the game will be faster and more open. Yes you can argue about this penalty or that but overall we did the crimes and you have to cop it. All teams get away with a few here and there and we did too. Sure it's frustrating at the moment but we are on the up.
There is no doubt that we were the best team last night but we were effectively our own worst enemy. Losing Mbye hurt us badly and then Tolman on top of it didn't do us any favours, but one thing it did show was that Tolman is still a much better player than either of Fualolo or Tualau. It wasn't a single thing that got us beat but a culmination. Tualau dropping two balls at crucial stages, Hoppa's fumble of the difficult bomb with 5 to go, Brown getting the ball knocked out of his hand to name a few just stopped us from getting a roll on. For mine all the players showed a real dogs of war mentality out there and kept working for each other. Even Montoya aimed up big time tonight at least defensively so good on him.