Talk of the Townsend column: How Cowboys exploited Bulldogs’ Stephen Crichton’s biggest weakness

In his exclusive column, Chad Townsend has lifted the lid on how the Cowboys dismantled the Bulldogs defence by exposing a NSW superstar the team identified as Canterbury’s weakest link.

NRL 2024 RD22 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs v Canberra Raiders - Stephen Crichton, try, celeb NRL PHOTOS

Last week we took on the Bulldogs in the final round of the regular season.

Both teams had already qualified for the 2024 finals series but a twist in this match up was that the winner was guaranteed a home semi final which meant that there was going to be plenty to play for.

After last week’s performance against the Storm where we didn’t play our best football, the instructions were clear in preparations for the Bulldogs game and that was to get back to basics and do what we do well, which is high completions, high energy and being a resilient defensive football team.

I thought we were able to tick all of those boxes against the Bulldogs.

Our team got off to a hot start completing and getting ourselves into the game exploiting some areas of the Bulldogs team’s weakness in their defence.

Stephen Crichton of the Bulldogs is tackled during the round 20 NRL match between North Queensland Cowboys and Canterbury Bulldogs. Picture: Getty Images

One of our big targets was the inside shoulder of Stephen Crichton where Tom Dearden sent Heilum Luki all game running for an impressive 157m which included 4 line breaks all off nice short passes from Tom.

The connection from these two is one to watch over the coming weeks in the finals series.

Our game plan was to take on the Bulldogs through the middle of the field and we were able to execute that to perfection with a lot of our tries coming off the back of solid lead up work and players moving through the middle of the field.

This is a great sign for us and if we can continue this style of play by breaking down teams with high completions and challenging them through the middle of the field throughout the finals series we will be hard to beat.

Other solid performances from our boys included Sam McIntyre who ran for an impressive 173m in 48 minutes of work.

Sam has really taken his opportunity this season and it’s great to see him rewarded for his hard work and consistency.

Kyle Feldt scored another two tries, making his tally this season his highest throughout his whole career.

His wing partner Murray Taulagi also ran for 202m and two tries.

With the finals series here and having secured a home semi final we are really hoping that we can get as many of our members and fans to turn up and show your support wherever it possible.

Together we can do something special this season.

We hope that you will be there with us for every play and every game.

Originally published as Talk of the Townsend column: How Cowboys exploited Bulldogs’ Stephen Crichton’s biggest weakness