With a coach rolling for the first major year, losing to the Knights is apparently too embarrassing for the Bulldogs board, it will look like his wooden spoon-pick in the 2022 season.
But announcing that Canterbury is a good thing to end the year with the least number of wins seems a bit premature.
The end of this season is coming in the form of a bit of a pass-the-parcel type deal.
For the first five weeks of the year, the Tigers held the package, started 0-5 and roared with the future of Michael Maguire.
They then secured that famous, one-point victory over the Eagles – who, it is noted, defeated the Storm and the Panthers – and with another win over the 2021 Grand Finalist Rabbitos by the thinnest possible margin and abruptly followed the knives.
These wins were obviously important, but there was reason to look elsewhere to see who would be the worst team of the year, as the Knights – destroyed by injury, but then not always – went into a seven-game losing streak. Sit down at the table.
It’s a form of patch that any coach would have to worry about his future, and of course Adam O’Brien realized he was in the midst of a feud when the club’s CEO Phil Gardner said Sydney Morning Herald“We hope Adam stays with us for the next 10 years.”
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That right is like having the ‘full support of the board’ – the ‘walking dead man’ code.
However, a 16-6 victory over the Bulldogs on Friday night eased the pressure on the Knights coach and his accusers.
Of course, the heat that the situation in Newcastle left was applied directly to the dogs, with Trent Barrett stepping down as coach (read: jumping before pushing him).
It was a significant change in more than a fortnight, with the Berries giving the Roosters a 16-12 touch-up on the last day of April, before being beaten 14-4 (albeit rarely embarrassed) by the Raiders. Round 9.
Why Barrett is no longer in charge is mainly because his list is not a total of eight values, but it is better than managing to perform them.
When you join Matt Burton, Josh Ado-Carr, Tevita Pangai Jr., Paul Vaughan, Matt Duffy and Brent Naden in a team that already has Josh Jackson, Corey Allan, Jeremy Marshall-King, Aaron Scoop, Joe Stimson and Luke Thompson, You’ve got some pretty fair players in your book.
Again, not a roster that will make waves in the semifinals, but certainly good enough to improve on the 2021 final-place finish.
And that’s why Barrett doesn’t have a job anymore – because Belmore has a belief that the right coach will push the parcel to the next level.
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Whoever it is, it’s too early to say – Barrett has just cleared his desk, so the Bulldogs will probably be considered a team for now – especially after a wild old weekend in the magic round.
The Raiders may have been in the conversation but they brought the previous high-flying shark back to Earth over the weekend, with Canberra winning 30-10 to one of the top four contenders.
The Titans also recorded a comfortable win, a 20-16 win over St. George’s Elvara which should probably be too strong for the end of the year but the best twists, their wins are Warriors, Knights, Roosters and Tigers.
For the Kiwi party, it is impossible to say which version of their party will be launched on a particular day – or which half.
With 35 minutes left on the weekend, the Bunnies were 26-0 ahead of them, only Nathan Brown’s boys could decide they would play a few feet, giving the Brisbane Panthers an omnipotent finish as the Souths left the house at 32-30.
It is wild to realize that if the Warriors are able to finish the job, they will be purely out of eight for and against, with the Banners sitting at the bottom of the final spots with a 50 percent winning record for the year.
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Which suggests that at least one side will advance to the finals, again, without a winning record – an equal mix of wins and losses should suffice to play September football.
It further suggests that fans of almost every team continue to carry a candle to their final fantasy in 2022.
I mean, my brother and I went through the Knights draw over the weekend and the red and blue boys got 16 points in early July (let’s say a big win against a Penrith team that has ten players missing due to origin).
Illusion? Of course, but being a fan of rugby league is the real thing.
So I will not object to their hopes to show the features of other supporters and their side when a win means one week off and rate means six months.
I don’t know if any Canterbury fans believe they will make it, but they also shouldn’t admit that the wooden spoon will be theirs again this season.
Maybe a little shaking was needed. No matter how much they shook, I guess we’ll find out when the guy who will oversee the rest of their season is announced.