The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

The Bulldogs are letting the fans down

Roar Rookie
5th February, 2017
Advertisement
Belmore said goodbye to local product Josh Reynolds on Sunday. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Charles Knight)
Roar Rookie
5th February, 2017
31
1283 Reads

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, along with many other teams, seem to take the Auckland Nines as a joke.

These teams just turn up, take the $110,000 and run – but not this time.

It’s a slap in the face for the fans, but it’s a slap in the face for NRL as well when teams like these don’t take tournaments seriously.

Okay, so there’s the injury factor, fair enough – but why send over a half-arsed team? Todd Greenberg needs to come down heavy on his old club – he needs to strip away that blue-and-white one-eyed attitude and strip the Dogs of their cash. He needs to make a lesson out of them.

It didn’t take him long to strip Parramatta of the Nines title last year, so why not strip the Dogs? It’s unfair to the fans – those people who have paid good money to watch the cream of the NRL crop play and to see the league’s up-and-comers make their mark on the game, like Bevan French did last year.

Instead all they get is coaches chucking wobblies and refusing to let their top players go over – and then they send their assistant coaches over too.

If they don’t want to play, replace them with a team that will – like Papua New Guinea or a New South Wales Country Combined side or a Queensland resident combined squad. Anyone who takes this Nines seriously should be welcome.

At least teams like Brisbane, Parramatta, North Queensland and Gold Coast brought over their big names, like JT, Norman, Big Semi and Milford, and even Hayne, who’s now injured, I think will stay to watch the rest of the tournament. These teams at least put in the effort by using the Nines as a good test for younger players.

Advertisement

To the Bulldogs I say: pull your fingers out, because you’re letting down your fans and all those who come to watch you play the game.

As Derryn Hinch would say, shame, shame, shame.

close