Des Hasler launches attack on referees despite Bulldogs victory over Knights

CANTERBURY notched up their 10th straight NRL win, a 26-10 victory over Newcastle, to consolidate top spot on the competition table.

JUST who can stop this Bulldogs juggernaut?

After Saturday night, Des Hasler would have you believe it could be the referees.

One thing is clear though, it is going to take a very good side to bring the competition frontrunners undone.

Combining a potent mixture of power, procession and flair and a defensive attitude that wins grandfinals, the Dogs scored their 10th consecutive victory and at the same time, left the Knights' finals aspirations hanging by a thread.

A home crowd of 29,482 poured into Hunter Stadium hoping to see Newcastle continue their late-season play-offs charge.

Instead, they witnessed why Hasler's Dogs have one hand on the minor premiership.

The Bulldogs exploded out of the blocks to set up the win in the first half scoring 24 unanswered points in 17 minutes.

It left Newcastle coach Wayne Bennett lamenting another poor start from his side.

"It's happened to us a couple of times already this year and obviously, we have an issue there,''Bennett said.

"We just haven't got it right. We can't give that lead away in this competition against any team and we've done it three or four times now. It doesn't work."

He said the tragedy of the night for the home side was winning 10-2 on the scoreboard after that initial onslaught from the Bulldogs.

Hasler typically played down his side's performance.

Asked had he seen a better opening 20 minutes to a game this season, he said:"I think a few sides have played that kind of footy but the benefits for us tonight was we took the crowd right out of it,''he said.

"The second half, I thought we defended quite well. They had seven repeat sets which is a lot of footy so I thought we defended admirably.

Frank Pritchard

Prop Aiden Tolman epitimised the work ethic of the Dogs with Paul Gallen-like statistics, coming up with 40 tackles and 190 metres in attack. But he had plenty of support.

Fullback Ben Barba's defence in the second half at crucial times was also outstanding.

Any suggestion the Dogs were due for a flat performance after nine consecutive wins was quickly dispelled in the opening minutes.

The alarm bells were ringing for the home side when Bulldogs winger Sam Perrett found an acre of space down the right flank in just the second minute.

Cornered by the cover, Perrett hoisted a bomb into the Knights in-goal for halfback Joel Romelo to score a great try.

The Dogs stretched the lead to 12-0 four minutes later thanks to a highly dubious video referee call by Bernard Sutton.

Sutton gave winger Jonathan Wright the benefit of the doubt in grounding a Ben Barba kick which evaded Akuila Uate in the Knights in-goal.

There appeared a major doubt about whether Wright got any real downward pressure but he was given the green light.

There was no doubt whatsoever about Wright's second try in the 12th minute.

From a scrum deep in the Knights half, Barba's blistering pace saw him get on the outside of a defender to give Wright a free passage to the try-line.

At 18-0 down, Newcastle was getting a footballing lesson from the competition frontrunners.

The Bulldogs were physically superior with their second phase off-loading punching holes in the Knights defence all over the park.

Five-eighth Josh Reynolds then rubbed further salt into Newcastle's wounds when he toyed with the Knights defence before scoring in the 17th minute.

Reynolds, who was outstanding in the first half, feigned to kick, dummied and then fell down on one knee before getting up and beating two defenders in a mesmerising burst.

At 24-0, any scoreline looked possible.

But the Knights managed stem the flow of points and got on the board in the final minute through Uate for a 24-4 halftime scoreline.

The Knights gave their home fans some reason for optimism when they were first to score in the second half.

A Jarrod Mullen cross-field chip found Uate on the full and he powered through Barba to score outwide for Tyrone Roberts to convert and narrow the gap to 24-10.

Newcastle then peppered the Bulldogs line for several sets, forcing four line dropouts but could not find a way through the Dogs' resilient defence. 

See how we covered the game at our match centre.

BULLDOGS 26 (J Wright 2 J Reynolds J Romelo tries K Inu 5 goals) bt NEWCASTLE 10 (A Uate 2 tries T Roberts goal) at Hunter Stadium. Referee: Jason Robinson, Brett Suttor. Crowd: 29,482.