Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield’s highlights and lowlights: Bulldogs join race for Dragons wrecking ball Finau Latu

The Canterbury Bulldogs continue to chase the best young prospects in rugby league, joining the race for an Australian Schoolboys star forward. PHIL ROTHFIELD has that and more in his highlights and lowlights.

The Bulldogs have joined the race for Finau Latu. Picture: Warren Gannon Photography

Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield reveals his highlights and lowlights from the week in sport, revealing the Sydney Roosters’ hero rookie prop Taylor Losalu’s concreting days are over.

HIGHLIGHT

The Canberra Raiders. This side has travelled from the national capital to Las Vegas, Townsville, Brookvale and Darwin over a brutal six-round schedule. Then they come out and put 50 points on Parramatta. Ricky Stuart, the high-performance staff and the players are doing a sensational job.

LOWLIGHT

The Johnathan Thurston v Spencer Leniu sideline verbal stoush achieved nothing but rob the Sydney Roosters of much-deserved praise for their magnificent against-all-odds victory over the Brisbane Broncos on Friday night. We should have been reading about the heroics of the Roosters in Saturday’s papers, not Thurston having a sook about being called a “f…wit” – which has happened to us all over the years on the NRL beat.

CONCRETE OFFER

Roosters forward Taylor Losalu has done his last shift as a concreter. The 22-year-old is the rookie prop who helped the Chooks beat the Penrith Panthers in Round 2 on a Friday night then went to work at 7am on the Saturday morning to build a driveway. The Roosters have now upgraded the youngster from a $20,000 contract to an extended full-time deal worth about $120,000.

It’s tools down for Taylor Losalu.

SPOTTED

Poor old Chad Townsend can’t take a trick. Dropped to reserve grade for Hugo Savala who had a blinder in the win over Brisbane on Friday night, Townsend came into a Roosters’ NSW Cup side that had won their previous two games. Unfortunately for Townsend, they got flogged 44-12 by the Dragons in Wollongong on Saturday.

SPOTTED

The Canterbury Bulldogs continue to chase the best young prospects in rugby league. St George Illawarra teenager and Australian Schoolboy Finau Latu met with the Dogs last week. He also met with Knights recruitment boss Peter O’Sullivan in Newcastle. How Gus Gould plans to fit the youngster in with an already overflowing number of young forwards at Belmore remains to be seen.

Young Dragons wreckingball.

SPOTTED

The Canterbury Bulldogs are now expecting a crowd of up to 70,000 at Accor on Good Friday judging by early ticket sales. CEO Aaron Warburton has security meetings planned with police and stadium security staff in the lead up to the game to prevent a repeat of recent spectator incidents.

A stadium spokesperson said: “Venues NSW has a zero-tolerance approach to anti-social behaviour and we have in place strong processes to identify, respond to and resolve incidents.

Any offenders will be dealt with by police and face bans from attending future events.”

Police released images in an appeal to identify several people following a brawl at Accor Stadium.

SPOTTED

Roosters star Angus Crichton has taken to social media to explain the ugly incident with former teammate Adam Reynolds at Suncorp on Friday night that resulted in him copping a Grade 1 dangerous contact charge.

“This guy (Reynolds) was my first NRL halfback I played with,” Crichton said, “Helped me start my career. To the people abusing me online I’d never try and injure or hurt him.

“He’s my mate, was just trying to break a tackle like I always do, and I got it wrong, we sorted it out, no love lost. Sorry for posting this language on here but I can’t just sit back and cop it.”

Angus Crichton moved to clear the air after copping abuse over his dangerous contact on Adam Reynolds.

360 VIEW

Catch you on NRL 360 at 6.30pm on Fox League with Braith Anasta, Gorden Tallis and Brent Read to discuss all the big issues from a dramatic round of football. The show’s origin host Ben Ikin is making a comeback to appear on the heavy hitter segment.

COMEDY VALUE

Could a comedian save the Penrith Panthers?

One of the NRL’s sharpest minds has rubbished suggestions that the four-time champions are done and dusted for the year.

Storm general manager and NSW Origin adviser Frank Ponissi points out that Melbourne recovered from a similar predicament with five straight losses back in 2012 before going on to win the title.

And how coach Craig Bellamy hired a comedian to crack jokes for an hour at training to get rid of the stress and anxiety of fighting to save their season.

No team has won the premiership after going 1-5 to start the season. Picture: NRL Photos

“After the fifth loss, the coach brought in a comedian, Marty Fields,” Ponissi explained. “He came in, told some jokes, and lightened up the players. The mood changed. It was a gem.”

Storm then won eight straight to win the title. Ponissi insists Penrith can do something similar.

“Anyone dismissing the Panthers do so at their peril,” Ponissi said, “In late 2012, we lost five consecutive games and they wrote us off.

“But we ended up winning the comp. They are not done.”

That year the Storm went through a shocking slump:

● Round 16 – Lost 20-4 to the Bulldog

● Round 17 – Bye

● Round 18 – Lost 40-12 to the Raiders

● Round 19 – Lost 20-16 to the Cowboys

● Round 20 – Lost 15-10 to Parramatta

● Round 21 – Lost 26-18 to the Dragons

The next week they flogged Penrith 46-6.

Cooper Cronk, Cameron Smith and Billy Slater with the 2012 premiership trophy.

The Storm side back then relied on their big three Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater to lead the recovery.

The Panthers may have lost a stack of players in recent years but still have their own ‘big three’ in Nathan Cleary, Isaah Yeo and Dylan Edwards.

Maybe they need a comedian.

Maybe a team dinner, a night at the pub and a good old-fashioned bonding session.

Something needs to happen before it’s too late.

Originally published as Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield’s highlights and lowlights: Bulldogs join race for Dragons wrecking ball Finau Latu