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Decimated by injuries. One win in their last five. A rookie coach learning his way in the NRL. Halves uncertainty and big outs in the backline.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because there’s two of them. The Dogs and Warriors face off this weekend in the Friday early kickoff, with a potential season-turning moment in the offing.
The perception would be that the Warriors are resurgent in 2023, with new boss Andrew Webster impressing in his first ten games of first grade, building a culture from scratch and coaxing performances out of a ragtag bunch of rookies and veterans amid a massive injury crisis that has seen three different five eighths and three different fullbacks in ten games.
Yet the Bulldogs, who haven’t been seen in anywhere near the same light as the Kiwi outfit, qualify for all of that too. Indeed, if they win in Round 11, the clubs will have the same record.
Cameron Ciraldo joined to pick up the pieces at a club that hasn’t been in the finals since 2017 and has endured damaging injuries to both starting frontrowers and both wingers, while losing key recruit Viliame Kikau and dropping Kyle Flanagan from the halfback role.
The Dogs have handed out five debuts already in 2023, as well as blooding another four on fewer than five appearances, as they sought to get 17 men on the field. No club has applied for more top 30 exemptions.
Ciraldo hasn’t used the excuses available to him – few NRL coaches would – but if there was ever a time when invoking the injury list and the number of raw, young players would have been excused, this was it.
Now, with a third of the season gone and numbers starting to come back, it’s time for the Dogs to kick on. Their next ten fixtures could line up perfectly for a charge up the table, especially with the Origin period, starting with the Warriors.
Now, Jacob Kiraz is back, along with Tevita Pangai Jnr, their pack leader, who is coming back up to speed after a long layoff. Josh Addo-Carr is delayed a week, but should be in for Round 12.
The next two matches, at home to the Warriors and then the Titans, could see Canterbury go to the bye with a positive record.
Thereafter, it’s a tougher trot, but one that might improve with Origin effected added. They sit out the week of Game 1 with the bye, then face a Roosters side that might have James Tedesco, Lindsay Collins and potentially Angus Crichton backing up.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 04: Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo is interviewed during the round one NRL match between the Manly Sea Eagles and the Canterbury Bulldogs at 4 Pines Park on March 04, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The Queen’s Birthday clash with the Eels follows, then another pre-Origin game against a Sharks side that will be lacking Nicho Hynes, if not other players.
As it stands, only Josh Addo-Carr is a possiible Blues call-up from Canterbury, and that depends heavily on his ability to get fit again before teams are selected.
Matt Burton, who performed in 2022, is unlikely to be selected at centre or five eighth with other options available.
The Warriors, too, will be in a similar position. They lose nobody to Origin, and will play the weekend before against the Broncos – but come into that game off the back of a bye and against a Brisbane team that will be, in all likelihood, without Payne Haas, Pat Carrigan, Reece Walsh, Selwyn Cobbo and Kurt Capewell.
The upcoming fixtures define this weekend’s meeting as a make-or-break clash for the Dogs. They have four wins so far, but aside from a boilover in Melbourne, they’ve been against the Tigers, Dragons and Cowboys, aka the two sides below them and one on equal pegging.
Ciraldo will know that beating other cellar-dwellers is important, but beating the next level up from that is how his side go from simply avoiding the spoon to competing for the finals.
The Warriors are, again, very similar: their wins have been the Cowboys (twice), the Knights, a shock away win in Cronulla and the Dogs. The form reads that this is two teams who can beat bad sides but will get beaten, most of the time at least, by any decent team that shows up.
Statistically, however, there is a big difference. The Dogs have snuck by teams – outside of that Storm win, their margins have been four, two and one.
Hayze Perham is tackled in Wollongong. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Currently, they sit last for run metres and tackles inside 20 (T20) with the ball, as well as tries conceded without it. This is all mitigated by their injury list, but now has to be the time where that changes.
For comparison, the Warriors have endured similar struggles in yardage – third last – but have been able to turn what metres they have made into consistent pressure, with upper echelon numbers for T20 and line engagements, showing how much they have engaged their halves.
These disparities are a product of the two coaches’ philosophies. Webster has clearly focussed on making the Warriors hard to beat at the expense of flair – they are currently completing highest in the NRL – even though they aren’t making metres – and rank third for single-man hit-ups.
That’s the sign of a team that is playing very conservatively and waiting for the opponents to make mistakes. It might look insipid against good sides – the Warriors have scored once in the last two weeks against the Roosters and Panthers – but will win plenty of games against those around them. In year one of the rebuild, Webster will take that.
Ciraldo, however, has clearly told his team to attack more. Against the Bunnies, they scored off a length of the field shift play just three minutes into the game and against the Dragons, got two of their tries from range. They aren’t going to wait around to accumulate pressure.
That has seen them give a bloody nose to Melbourne, but also put a lot of pressure on their young defence that saw Souths, Parra and Cronulla all run up scores. That run of defeats was at the lowest ebb of the injury crisis, however, and the test will be if the coach sticks to the programme now that the better players are back on deck.
If he does, then this could be a cracker, and set the Dogs up for success in the coming weeks.
Around Origin last year, under the freewheeling style of Mick Potter, the Dogs grabbed wins over the Eels, Tigers, Titans and Knights that were all about free-flowing footy. Ciraldo has admitted that elements of Potter’s style are carried on in the attack.
The battle, as Souths and Cronulla show at the top of the table, is to defend when the attack inevitably drops the ball. Against the Warriors, it could be a classic clash of styles in which the Dogs try to attack, but are forced to back up that style with prolonged periods of tackling.
With close to their best 17 playing, that should be there. Canterbury have never shown a lack of fight even when getting flogged at times, and with bodies back, they now need to turn that passion into points.