Bulldogs aim to improve on attack after embarrassing 2019
Canterbury coach Dean Pay is optimistic about his team’s work on attacking plays for the 2020 NRL season – because it couldn’t get any worse than it did this year.
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Canterbury finished season 2019 with their worst points record in 30 years but flyer Reimis Smith is confident Dean Pay can bring back the bite in the Bulldogs’ attack in 2020.
Pay’s troops finished the season on a high with five wins from their last six games but only scored 326 points overall – the least in a regular season since 1989 for the club.
According to Fox Sports Lab, Canterbury scored the fewest points (13.6 per game) and tries (2.3 per game) this year. They made the second fewest linebreaks (3.2 per game) and tackle busts (20.4 per game).
In comparison, premiers the Sydney Roosters scored 25.4 points and 4.4 tries per game – the most of any side in 2019.
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The Bulldogs also had the second worst ratio of scoring when inside the opposition’s 20 metre zone – scoring one try for every 16.3 tackles. Only the Penrith Panthers took longer to score at 16.9 tackles per try.
Winger Smith conceded at times during the season his side’s attack lacked clear direction and that stunted their ability to find the tryline.
But Pay has already started to place an emphasis on skill work and forming combinations on top of the normal gruelling fitness regimen players are put through early in the summer.
“We’re not running around going ‘what’s on, what’s on?’ when it comes to our attack,” Smith said.
“There’s a lot of talk, the halves are talking a lot and going well. And now everyone is starting to find their role and understands what their job is.
“It’s flowing. That’s what makes me confident about our attack next year, I have a really good feeling our attack.
“Everyone knows what they're doing. It’s going to get heaps better.
“We’ve been touching on in it [attack] a bit, building combinations and such but it’s still early … the deeper into pre-season the better we will get. We can definitely score more points and hopefully win more games.”
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Canterbury’s late season turnaround in form and a five-try haul in their 30-14 win against the Brisbane Broncos in round 25 has also shifted the mood at the club. And Smith revealed his teammates are quietly optimistic about their chances in 2020.
“We’re on the up now, you can feel it. It’s good for the team and for the club,” Smith said.
“We won four games in a row and that’s really positive because we were building to that. Before we lost games by only two or four points, we lost by 2 points against Melbourne, towards the end of the season.
“But then we started to get a bit of luck, we started winning. That’s how we have to start of next season, we can’t be chasing our tails like this year.”