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When the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs fell at the final hurdle in last year’s NRL premiership, in remarkable circumstances it was a bitter blow for Doggies fans.
However with a stable playing roster and Des the supercoach under wraps the blue and white army weren’t exactly about to go start supporting Parramatta.
Yet, in a surprise out of a Scooby Doo finale, we’re five rounds into the season and the Dogs are well and truly in the doghouse while the Eels bathe in the relatively successful glow of tenth position.
Under most circumstances the response to this apparition would be “go take a cold shower (out of recording device range), it’s round five you muppet!”
And yes, it still is early days, agreed. However despite this I think the Dogs have a fairly serious problem on their hands.
I believe they’re cursed. As I see it this is the only rational explanation.
Since James Graham went the ‘Billy bite’ every single damn thing has gone wrong for the Bulldogs. Everything.
First there’s the Mad Monday debacle. No worries, we don’t need to care what people think of us as long as we play good.
Kasiano’s injury, Corey Payne retirement and Graham’s suspension. Hey who needs props when you have a Dally M excitement machine out back?
Ben Barba’s withdraws with personal issues. Oh nuts, well, Steve Turner can play fullback. Turner gets a season ending, on-field career-ending injury.
That’s cool, Inu can play there too. Inu lengthy suspension.
Hey Barba’s back! Suffers arm injury.
See what I mean? Now all of a sudden their only big off-season purchase T-Rex is playing like the fat bloke who gets eaten in Jurassic Park to boot!
The problem for the Bulldogs is while at first these stumbling blocks appeared to be beginning of the season teething issues, suddenly their expected completion dates have blown out like the Oasis development.
A while back I wrote about sporting team’s suffering an Annus Horribilis, and I’m convinced that the Dogs are stuck slap bang in one.
Yes, like the Warriors of 2012, the Roosters of 2011, and the Eels of 2010, the Bulldogs have begun the climb back up Everest only months after having fallen back to base camp from within spitting distance of the summit and must be thinking to themselves “can we really go through all this again?”
Making a grand final is tough, but facing up to the season after as the bloke who four putted on the 18th hole must be like Chinese algebra.
While Rabs may tell us you have to lose one to win one, the mental scars must be the hardest things to heal.
If there’s anything working in the Bulldogs favour it’s that Hasler is the last NRL coach to lead a losing grand final side to glory the following year with Manly in 2008.
Personally though I think Canterbury’s problems stretch beyond the reaches of a mere mortal and his mullet, and that if the Bulldogs want to salvage anything from this season they’d be better off looking at Tarot cards than tackle bags.
Cloves of garlic in the dressing sheds. A lucky Rabbitohs foot. Sacrificing a train carriage to the football Gods…something!
I mean, what else could possibly go wrong?
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