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Des Hasler is so far away from seeing out his coaching contract with the battling Bulldogs.
The once proud club is set to miss the 2017 finals and having the worst attack in the competition – averaging just 13 points per game – would almost completely rule out a late charge to the top eight.
As strange as some of Hasler’s press conferences is the fact they have the fourth-best defence in the competition. Next year cannot come soon enough for the long-suffering fans with the additions of the offloading ability of Aaron Woods, attacking general Kiwi Kieran Foran and Samoan international Nu Brown, who has been signed to play hooker and add creativity to a currently non-existent attack.
Hasler may not get to work with these new recruits, as he has reportedly been given an ultimatum to make the eight or seek employment elsewhere from a fed up Bulldogs board.
The Dogs run home is not the scariest, and it is still possible for the most loyal fans to believe that they can still pull off the unthinkable.
The start with the Knights this weekend then head into a bye – so there are four points surely?
You wouldn’t completely rule Newcastle out, but at Belmore, the Dogs should be registering their second win in eight matches.
However, the real problem awaits Hasler when his team travels to Brisbane after the bye week in Round 20 for a Thursday night clash with the Broncos.
The date will be July 20th and this could well be a date Hasler and Canterbury fans never forget.
The Wayne Bennett-coached Broncos will pose all sorts of problems for the Bulldogs and, like Brisbane have historically done at home late in a season since their inception in 1988, they could pile on maximum misery with a huge score.
This would heap massive pressure on the Bulldogs board and they could be forced to take swift action sooner than first thought.
Hasler would come under severe scrutiny and a scenario of Jim Dymock seeing the season out as caretaker coach is not that far-fetched.
The beauty of the NRL is its unpredictability, but you get the feeling if Hasler was a cat he’d almost certainly have used up eight of his lives.
A former Premiership-winning player and coach with the Manly Sea Eagles, Hasler has just the one life left at the Bulldogs and he is going to have to use it very wisely when he comes up against 17 bucking Broncos in two weeks’ time.
Otherwise, the Bulldogs board could be forced to seek a return from elsewhere in the coaching ranks as season 2017 looks to provide the club money for nothing with Hasler at the helm.
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