Reality bites Pay’s Blunderdogs

They can talk all they like about leaving last week’s humiliation behind but the Bulldogs are the worst team in the NRL.

Will Hopoate, left, and Canterbury captain Josh Jackson at Belmore yesterday. Picture: Adam Yip

The Bulldogs have a video for the season. It’s a tear-jerker. There’s footage of Bullfrog Moore and the Dogs Of War and The Entertainers and Terry Lamb and Steve Mortimer and Steve Folkes and all the heartfelt and historic old stuff that can give a bloke goosebumps before wild-eyed captain Josh Jackson’s studs go click-clacking down the tunnel and he says: “It’s time for the madness.”

As always, there’s a hashtag. This one is #proudtobeabulldog. After round one, is anyone in the kennel feeling it? They’re the worst team in the comp. They can talk all they like about training hard and leaving last week’s humiliation in New Zealand and yada-yada but the facts of the matter are these: they look no damn good on paper; they’ve looked even worse on the field.

They need more than a retrospective video of the glory days to save the total and utter humiliation of an 84-year-old club this season.

They’re living up to all the pre-season expectations. All of them. The same 17 players whacked 40-6 by the Warriors have been named to face the Eels at ANZ Stadium on Sunday. You can put your house on the Dogs getting the wooden spoon while satisfying the NRL’s flimsy directive to gamble responsibly. Sportsbet has them at $1.10 to miss the playoffs — the same price as Winx to win the George Ryder Stakes. A couple of good and not-so-good things.

Salary cap stuff-ups have cost them dearly. They’ve lost their two best forwards in David Klemmer and Aaron Woods. They’ve lost their three best backs in Moses Mbye, Josh Morris and Brett Morris. They’ve been likened to a reserve grade side by a former captain of the club. Not even a rev-up speech from Paralympic legend Kurt Fearnley has made a difference. They can’t get to Mad Monday fast enough. Then again …

Dylan Napa has gone from the penthouse to the basement. From the Roosters to the Bulldogs. He’s jumped aboard the Titanic right when it’s going under. With other struggling sides, you can see where improvement is possible. Player X will return from injury or suspension. They’ll hang onto the ball and go from there. Their rep stars will come good when it matters. There’s none of the above at the Bulldogs.

They’ve already fielded their best 17 players. Those 17 players completed 28 of their 32 sets against the Warriors. That’s a good number — 88 per cent. And they’ve still been hammered in the second-biggest opening round loss for the Bulldogs since inception in 1935. Missing fewer than 38 tackles may be an idea but surely, surely, surely, the season already has disaster written all over it.

“That’s your expectation, not our expectation,” Napa said yesterday. “We tried to do our review over there and leave that game in New Zealand. The reality is that it’s in the books and we have to speak about it to get better.

“It is a worry but it’s not going to define the way we finish off or start the season. It wasn’t what we had planned but all we can do now is just get back into hard training and put in a good performance.

“Obviously we’re going to try to forget about the game on Saturday in New Zealand. We just have to gather together as a group and put all that energy into beating Parramatta. If we’re still dwelling on a game that happened three days ago, it’s not going to be good for the culture around here.”

Napa’s middle name is Hercules. He may need to play in a loin cloth and swing a wooden club to get the Bulldogs to muscle up. Coach Dean Pay cut a forlorn figure in Auckland. He criticised the attitude of his players. And the slow play-the-balls. And the missed tackles. And the lack of aggression in the tackles they did make. And the turnovers. And how the Warriors ran harder. And hit harder. “It’s just not good enough,” Pay has said. “We want to turn it around really quick.”

With the same blokes? Everything will be revealed against Parramatta about the two things that can save the Bulldogs: the heads and hearts of the players. They have to embrace the fact they have the worst roster in the comp. Pay needs a light-bulb moment. A spark. A revolutionary insert to his playbook. If he keeps trying the same things, with the same players, there’s the madness.

Ex-Bulldogs captain Mick Ennis has told Fox Sports: “They were blown off the park. Absolutely blown off the park. They looked like a reserve grade side, to be honest. They really did.

“I know that’s critical and it’s really hard being a former captain of that club. It’s only round one, I know, but it’s critical. They were absolutely blown away … They couldn’t contain them. The Warriors were at their absolute best but for the Dogs, in the space of five, six, seven days, they need a huge rocket.”