Are the Bulldogs officially the Flat Track Bullies of the NRL?

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Bullfrog2 said:
In simple turns for the punters!
The Bulldogs have played 15 games this year, 4 of those games were against top 8 teams losing 3 of them!
Last season we played 25 games, 12 of those games against top 8 teams, winning 4 games only ( 2 x of those games were against Newcastle who finished in eighth place).
We have a 25% win record against the top 8 teams over the past 2 seasons.
You can sugar coat the results as much as you like the simple fact is there seems to be an alarming trend.
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We're not Cronulla
 
Bullfrog2 said:
Sharks have been disappointing this year and are outside the eight, and when we do jag a win against a top 8 team it seems to be at the end of games similar to the raiders we’re a bit of luck is involved.
I do believe we have the potential to put this to bed in the back half of the season!
Time will tell.
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We also beat the roosters who many say will make the 8 or are a side that can beat anyone.
 
Going to sound ridiculous. But shouldn’t your losses be to top teams. Are we meant to lose to bottom teams as well. We aren’t going to go undefeated. Our only full strength losses are to Penrith and Brisbane idk that’s pretty strong season if you ask me. I don’t get the narrative of losing to top teams. Who the fuck are we meant to lose to
 
Bullfrog2 said:
In simple turns for the punters!
The Bulldogs have played 15 games this year, 4 of those games were against top 8 teams losing 3 of them!
Last season we played 25 games, 12 of those games against top 8 teams, winning 4 games only ( 2 x of those games were against Newcastle who finished in eighth place).
We have a 25% win record against the top 8 teams over the past 2 seasons.
You can sugar coat the results as much as you like the simple fact is there seems to be an alarming trend.
Click to expand...

Not sugar coating anything, we have not played many games against the top 8 team this year.

Infact Panthers were outside the 8 when we versed them. They got into 8 after beating us.

We have lost 2 games against the team sitting outside 8 and 2 games (both against broncos) inside the 8.

Again we can beat any team in the comp as we have done against the competition leaders.

We are no Flat Track Bully as the article suggests.
 
Anyone who witnessed the panthers game knows the dogs potential this season. No one would want to play the dogs because they have to go 80 minutes to even have a chance of beating us & we are one of the fittest teams in the comp. The main issue is we have hit the top teams when we have had marquees out or we have hit top teams when Sutton refs us.
 
blah said:
Going to sound ridiculous. But shouldn’t your losses be to top teams. Are we meant to lose to bottom teams as well. We aren’t going to go undefeated. Our only full strength losses are to Penrith and Brisbane idk that’s pretty strong season if you ask me. I don’t get the narrative of losing to top teams. Who the fuck are we meant to lose to
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You just have to look who storm and raiders have played, pretty much the same as us.
 
Novdoggie said:
One thing i will say amongst all the changes, experiments and player movements.... THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC!

I will also raise the following...

We have points in the bank to afford to tinker with our side. Premierships are not won in July. In fact, this little period of whatever you want to call it is a blessing that it has come now. Why?
1. It brings everyone back down to earth from the players, staff and fans. I really think we were looking too far ahead.
2.This week will mark 4 weeks since Galvin became a Bulldog and every week that passes he is learning our system while as I said we have points in the bank. He will only get better towards the back end of the season. Get behind him, everyone!! He is our future whether you like it or not and WHEN he wins us Premierships and i say 'PREMIERSHIPS' we will all be kissing his arse. Will it be this year? Maybe, maybe not which brings me to my next point.
3. Why are we panicking and like a lot on here putting shit on players, coaches and even Gus? We are a developing team and not set in any way. This year is still a building year which is insane where we sit on the table. Look at the bigger picture and beyond this year. If we don't win it this year you will see Premierships in years to come because the club made the toughest and ballsiest decisions on recruitment and retention that most clubs are scared to make. Our future is in good hands.
4. Sexton and Mahoney moving on is what I call one of the gutsiest decisions I have seen in many years. This decision was in the best interest of our long term future, not the immediate. What we do in the immediate when we really aren't expected to win the premiership will be a bonus in our experimental and building year because when we are expected to win Premierships that will come, and they will come in numbers, why? It's because the club made the sacrifices now for the success in the future.

We can't panic, but have to be patient and accept what the ups and downs bring, for now.
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Very well said my friend….!!!!!!!
 
TOTTO said:
You just have to look who storm and raiders have played, pretty much the same as us.
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WE ARE in the HEADLINES because we have risen to the TOP and still are regardless of the draw the outcomes still would’ve been the same doesn’t matter if we win coming back and beating the likes of Canberra and the panthers by a penalty which really set HIGH STANDARDS and that’s all we are doing and we will PREVAIL….!!!!!!!
 
wendog33 said:
We don't have enough x-factor/speed/creativity to easily transition to attack when opportunities present themselves.

Our style is ALL defence effort not 50/50 attack, and when teams hang on and go toe to toe they know thats all they need to do for that period bc they know possession will turn, they can get away with ruck interference (in all its forms) to slow us down and they do have the ability to pull something outa the bag to get points. We rarely do.

Ciro also puts maximum pressure on the team by selections, "unrealistic" superhuman expectations from small forwards and so many bench subs up his sleeve by the end of games. Its all on purpose of course and part of his long term strategies, but as for now? It puts fatigue into the forwards "unnecessarily"? *shrugs* *who knows*. Our backs are expected to do a lot of defence and they spend more time in defence than attack as well.

Penrith's style work for them bc they have a few experienced gamebreakers. We don't have any except for Critta at centre and we have no speed and no creative halves.

Until we can become a complete roster with quick attacking options, we'll continue struggling against the better teams, or the teams who chance their arms and don't get into the grind with us and we cant control.

We don't have the full complement of players to go the full distance. At present we have to have every single player, play to the utmost of their ability to get wins against the top teams...that cant be expected from any player week after week.

We've probably done as well as we could hope for at this stage.

I'm gonna say that's why they got Galvin and Gus and Ciro have finally realised we need more attacking options and that the current limited gameplan is not sustainable in big games.

There'll probably be more angst and losses but fans probably need to start thinking the coach and GMF aren't afraid to change and tinker and put us in a place where we go away from what has worked up till now in the belief that we don't have the necessary all round game to go deep into the Finals.
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We keep forgetting that the Bulldogs are still a work in progress, with journeyman players holding the team together, until their young recruits are ready for the big time - and doing it excellently.

It is a success story that critics are viewing from the wrong angle.

On paper, we are outclassed by most other sides, including those well below us.

The story should not be whether the Bulldogs are top four performers, but how does a patchwork team that should be struggling to make the eight find itself second on the ladder with seven games to go?

If journalists want to look at teams that are not being challenged, they should go back to the beginning of the season when they looked at who had the easiest and toughest draws, Easiest were the Canberra Raiders.
 
JaTT said:
So we're equal second on number of losses but every media organisation is painting it as doom and gloom. The fact that Ciro is able to experiment at this point in the season in preparation for finals is a major plus. Better than the situation last year when Mann goes down and we were scrambling to work out what to do.
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Still have the best defence in the comp.
 
KiwiDog7 said:
I agree, the reset and run home post origin when we have most if not all our top 17 available (and of course sorting the Galvin or Sexton situation out ) will have us well positioned for a finals assault.

Whilst the manner in which we lost last game stings, I think it clouds some fans judgement in that we need to provide context.

4 losses on the season and 3 of those were technically during Origin period

Broncos first time was a legitimate loss where we were pretty much full strength- cop that
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And two of our Origin selections didn't even get a run in SOO. We did without them for no reason.
 
Chris Harding said:
Still have the best defence in the comp.
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Yep stats don’t lie….!!!!!!!

These journalists don’t understand go back to the Melbourne Penrith Grandfinal
Mebourne best attacking team in the competition versus Penrith best defensive team in the competition last year how many points were scored one try a piece these journalists are idiots….!!!!!!!
 
Novdoggie said:
One thing i will say amongst all the changes, experiments and player movements.... THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC!

I will also raise the following...

We have points in the bank to afford to tinker with our side. Premierships are not won in July. In fact, this little period of whatever you want to call it is a blessing that it has come now. Why?
1. It brings everyone back down to earth from the players, staff and fans. I really think we were looking too far ahead.
2.This week will mark 4 weeks since Galvin became a Bulldog and every week that passes he is learning our system while as I said we have points in the bank. He will only get better towards the back end of the season. Get behind him, everyone!! He is our future whether you like it or not and WHEN he wins us Premierships and i say 'PREMIERSHIPS' we will all be kissing his arse. Will it be this year? Maybe, maybe not which brings me to my next point.
3. Why are we panicking and like a lot on here putting shit on players, coaches and even Gus? We are a developing team and not set in any way. This year is still a building year which is insane where we sit on the table. Look at the bigger picture and beyond this year. If we don't win it this year you will see Premierships in years to come because the club made the toughest and ballsiest decisions on recruitment and retention that most clubs are scared to make. Our future is in good hands.
4. Sexton and Mahoney moving on is what I call one of the gutsiest decisions I have seen in many years. This decision was in the best interest of our long term future, not the immediate. What we do in the immediate when we really aren't expected to win the premiership will be a bonus in our experimental and building year because when we are expected to win Premierships that will come, and they will come in numbers, why? It's because the club made the sacrifices now for the success in the future.

We can't panic, but have to be patient and accept what the ups and downs bring, for now.
Click to expand...
Excellent post.
 
Bullfrog2 said:
In simple turns for the punters!
The Bulldogs have played 15 games this year, 4 of those games were against top 8 teams losing 3 of them!
Last season we played 25 games, 12 of those games against top 8 teams, winning 4 games only ( 2 x of those games were against Newcastle who finished in eighth place).
We have a 25% win record against the top 8 teams over the past 2 seasons.
You can sugar coat the results as much as you like the simple fact is there seems to be an alarming trend.
Click to expand...
The trend is that the "experts" were confident that our season was finished when the Broncos beat us, and then when Galvin was signed, and we were on top of the table where they "knew" we didn't deserve to be.

The fact that we are now sitting at second spot, after the fancied Storm were done at home by Manly, just makes the "experts" dirty on us for overachieving.
 
We have played shit all year and yet we still coming 2nd...
We havnt had a full strength team all year. We have always missed 1 star player.
Yet we still win every week.
Best defense in comp by a long shot.
Next 6-7 weeks we come up against quality opposition so its going to be a good test for us.
It's not our fault that besides Melbourne and Canberra, rest are all shit clubs
 
Chris Harding said:
We keep forgetting that the Bulldogs are still a work in progress, with journeyman players holding the team together, until their young recruits are ready for the big time - and doing it excellently.

It is a success story that critics are viewing from the wrong angle.

On paper, we are outclassed by most other sides, including those well below us.

The story should not be whether the Bulldogs are top four performers, but how does a patchwork team that should be struggling to make the eight find itself second on the ladder with seven games to go?

If journalists want to look at teams that are not being challenged, they should go back to the beginning of the season when they looked at who had the easiest and toughest draws, Easiest were the Canberra Raiders.
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I remember saying to a friend at work that with our draw we should finish top four. But to do as well as we have done this year with the team we have is better than I thought we could. Leading the comp most of the year.

We have had a great draw. Although Canberras draw was certainly better as were some others. And to be fair to Canberra they have a very young team that was weaker than ours on paper to start the year. They like us have over achieved. Penrith and Brisbane have clearly under achieved.
 
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