News ‘Realist’ Bulldogs coach expects lows in coming NRL season

Cappuccino

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Interview with Baz
Hadnt seen it posted here



The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs are heading into the NRL season with a pre-season trial win under their belt, defeating the Cronulla Sharks 12-16 on Saturday.

Bulldogs head coach Trent Barrett told James Bracey and Billy Slater the game clarified a lot of the problems to address ahead of the Premiership.

“I was happy that we showed some fight, and … that’s been a trademark of the club for a long time.”

His ambition is to make a habit of winning, but the group’s inexperience playing together will be a hurdle.

“As coaches we need to bear in mind that it’s a new team; we’ve got to put the building blocks in place that we’re going to be successful for a long time.



“We’re not after a quick fix.

“I am a realist, and I know what’s in front of us, and it’s going to be a year where we do have some dips in performance.”
 

Alan79

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I'm not expecting a miraculous rise to being minor premiers. Even if we finish outside the 8 I'll be happy if we become a threat from inside the 20m zone and show support play throughout the game from all areas of the field. Hopefully the seemingly improved fitness will be the solution to that.

Other than that it'd be great if we don't start the season shooting ourselves in the foot by following up errors with a ten to fiteen minute period where everyone decides to get the errors out of their system. Most of our close losses last year saw us looking pretty competitive for about 60 minutes of the game with a couple of periods when something went wrong and we'd let in a couple of quick tries due to handing the ball over with unforced errors. So composure is a big area that we need to improve upon. I don't know who is the key to changing that on field as it was a decent portion of our squad that were guilty of nervous handling errors.

It won't be hard to improve on last seasons results. But it will be a big ask to improve enough to push for a finals berth. My hopes and expectations aren't balanced there. Expectations aren't that high (finishing 10th or above is a success given our last couple of seasons), but I'm hopeful the squad will gel and push us at least a couple of games into the finals.
 

Jai81

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I'm not expecting a miraculous rise to being minor premiers. Even if we finish outside the 8 I'll be happy if we become a threat from inside the 20m zone and show support play throughout the game from all areas of the field. Hopefully the seemingly improved fitness will be the solution to that.

Other than that it'd be great if we don't start the season shooting ourselves in the foot by following up errors with a ten to fiteen minute period where everyone decides to get the errors out of their system. Most of our close losses last year saw us looking pretty competitive for about 60 minutes of the game with a couple of periods when something went wrong and we'd let in a couple of quick tries due to handing the ball over with unforced errors. So composure is a big area that we need to improve upon. I don't know who is the key to changing that on field as it was a decent portion of our squad that were guilty of nervous handling errors.

It won't be hard to improve on last seasons results. But it will be a big ask to improve enough to push for a finals berth. My hopes and expectations aren't balanced there. Expectations aren't that high (finishing 10th or above is a success given our last couple of seasons), but I'm hopeful the squad will gel and push us at least a couple of games into the finals.
Our attack has been so predictable and boring for a number of years now so being able to see some major improvement there would be nice!
 

Bluebody

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I am happy we have lost the plodders and replaced them with fresh and more faster and higher intensity players.
 

Bulldog1966

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Tbh my expectations are like Baz's there will be lows make no mistake about that we are weak in one or two important positions.
Plus both our wingers are average too, hope i'm wrong and they exceed expectations but to think they can play finals is pretty ambitious..hopefully some kennellers will exude patience but i fucking doubt it :laughing:
 

ddt192

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If we can average about 18 points a game that would be nice. 10th -12th with or without Burton.
 

D.O.W.

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Im not expecting top 8 to be perfectly honest, somewhere from 9th-12th is realistic imo.

I want to see the same fighting spirit we are accustomed too but with some flair, play with some f’n flair boys!! That trial game didn’t fill me with any great excitement from a “expect the unexpected” point of view or in the way most teams attack creating the invariable overlap that seems to always create space... I just hope we’re not as predictable as we have been, that can’t be too hard (5 hitups and a cross field kick on the last).
 

no1bulldog

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I'm just happy not to see Tolman involved anymore TBH. This season is already a win for me.
If the trial is anything to go by Heterington looks to be our new Tolman? He seemed to run the dead plays in the 20m zone
 
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