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NRL 2021: Dean Pay says Bulldogs should have signed Josh Reynolds, Benji Marshall
Paul Crawley
Dean Pay gets no joy out of seeing Canterbury fail without him, and directs no anger at Trent Barrett.
But what Pay can’t hide is his raw honesty, which is just in his DNA.
And the former Bulldogs coach has opened up about why not bringing back Josh Reynolds to the club last year was the wrong call in his opinion.
Pay revealed how he told the club at the time: “Kids aren’t going to f***ing learn standing behind the goal posts”.
We called Pay this week to get his take on how life at the Bulldogs has started without him in 2021.
With Canterbury the only NRL team winless after six rounds, they now take on Cronulla on Saturday staring down the barrel of equalling the club’s worst ever start to a season.
When Pay was punted Bulldogs fans were led to believe the worst was behind them.
Yet if anything the performances so far have gone backwards.
Not that Pay was about to throw stones because he knows exactly how soul destroying it would be for everyone involved, especially the young players who are at such a vulnerable time in their careers.
Pay also talked with a touch of sadness about watching a warrior like Josh Jackson constantly push his body to the brink for so little recognition or reward.
As for what it must be like for struggling young halves Kyle Flanagan and Jake Averillo, Pay can see the pressure building with each loss.
“It drains the life out of those kids,” he said.
That was set way back in 1964 when they lost their first seven games.
But that is also why Pay then reflected on a conversation he had about this time last year when he wanted to bring back Reynolds from Wests Tigers.
“I tried to get Reynolds back there for $100,000-a-year,” Pay continued.
“And they said, ‘No, don’t do it, we want to keep going with our kids’.
“And I said, ‘Well, your kids aren’t going to f***ing learn standing behind the goal posts.
“You have to get some competitive blokes there that want to f***ing win. Teach them how to win’.”
Which is exactly why Benji Marshall would also have been a good pick-up this year for minimum wage given the Bulldogs had let Kieran Foran go.
“100 per cent,” Pay agreed.
“At least he is going to give these blokes some confidence.”
When Pay was handed the reins at Canterbury the club’s salary cap was in disarray, with a stack of players on big back-ended contracts.
But as soon as blue skies appeared on the horizon in respect to having a clean slate to start building again, Pay was sent packing.
Looking back now, he can also pinpoint the exact moment his hopes of surviving long enough to build success pretty much came to a grinding halt.
“The back-end of the year before (2019) we won eight out of 10 games and you could see the confidence and the belief in just the way they walked around the place,” he recalled.
Then at the start of 2020 the Bulldogs went for a pre-season trip to Port Macquarie and Corey Harawira-Naera and Jayden Okunbor became embroiled in a sex scandal that led to both players being deregistered.
“And that just knocked the guts out of them,” Pay recalled.
“We had to start again.
“The players weren’t keen to let them go either, so I had to sort of mend a rift.
“But it was just one thing after another.”
In the end Pay knew he was fighting a losing battle.
He says he’s now doing some work in the building game and driving machinery.
Asked if he’d ever want to get back into coaching, he cracked up laughing at first.
But eventually he answered the question sincerely: “If there was an opportunity come up I’d look at it. But at the end of the day it is what it is.”
Dean Pay has opened up on the pain of watching the Bulldogs struggle, revealing the missed signing that could have made a huge difference.
Paul Crawley
Dean Pay gets no joy out of seeing Canterbury fail without him, and directs no anger at Trent Barrett.
But what Pay can’t hide is his raw honesty, which is just in his DNA.
And the former Bulldogs coach has opened up about why not bringing back Josh Reynolds to the club last year was the wrong call in his opinion.
Pay revealed how he told the club at the time: “Kids aren’t going to f***ing learn standing behind the goal posts”.
We called Pay this week to get his take on how life at the Bulldogs has started without him in 2021.
With Canterbury the only NRL team winless after six rounds, they now take on Cronulla on Saturday staring down the barrel of equalling the club’s worst ever start to a season.
When Pay was punted Bulldogs fans were led to believe the worst was behind them.
Yet if anything the performances so far have gone backwards.
Not that Pay was about to throw stones because he knows exactly how soul destroying it would be for everyone involved, especially the young players who are at such a vulnerable time in their careers.
Pay also talked with a touch of sadness about watching a warrior like Josh Jackson constantly push his body to the brink for so little recognition or reward.
As for what it must be like for struggling young halves Kyle Flanagan and Jake Averillo, Pay can see the pressure building with each loss.
“It drains the life out of those kids,” he said.
That was set way back in 1964 when they lost their first seven games.
But that is also why Pay then reflected on a conversation he had about this time last year when he wanted to bring back Reynolds from Wests Tigers.
“I tried to get Reynolds back there for $100,000-a-year,” Pay continued.
“And they said, ‘No, don’t do it, we want to keep going with our kids’.
“And I said, ‘Well, your kids aren’t going to f***ing learn standing behind the goal posts.
“You have to get some competitive blokes there that want to f***ing win. Teach them how to win’.”
Which is exactly why Benji Marshall would also have been a good pick-up this year for minimum wage given the Bulldogs had let Kieran Foran go.
“100 per cent,” Pay agreed.
“At least he is going to give these blokes some confidence.”
When Pay was handed the reins at Canterbury the club’s salary cap was in disarray, with a stack of players on big back-ended contracts.
But as soon as blue skies appeared on the horizon in respect to having a clean slate to start building again, Pay was sent packing.
Looking back now, he can also pinpoint the exact moment his hopes of surviving long enough to build success pretty much came to a grinding halt.
“The back-end of the year before (2019) we won eight out of 10 games and you could see the confidence and the belief in just the way they walked around the place,” he recalled.
Then at the start of 2020 the Bulldogs went for a pre-season trip to Port Macquarie and Corey Harawira-Naera and Jayden Okunbor became embroiled in a sex scandal that led to both players being deregistered.
“And that just knocked the guts out of them,” Pay recalled.
“We had to start again.
“The players weren’t keen to let them go either, so I had to sort of mend a rift.
“But it was just one thing after another.”
In the end Pay knew he was fighting a losing battle.
He says he’s now doing some work in the building game and driving machinery.
Asked if he’d ever want to get back into coaching, he cracked up laughing at first.
But eventually he answered the question sincerely: “If there was an opportunity come up I’d look at it. But at the end of the day it is what it is.”
