After a courageous loss last week, the Cantebury-Bankstown Bulldogs NYC side will look to bounce back against Newcastle this Saturday at ANZ Stadium.
The Pups had a fantastic start to their match against South Sydney last week. Centre Sam Gerrey-Burgess scored 2 tries in the opening 11 minutes to take a 10-nil lead.
After 23 minutes, a nice backline move allowed Dogs fullback Kyle Krisanksi-Kennedy to sprint through a hole and score to take the lead to 14-6.
The Bulldogs successfully challenged two contentious referee decisions, however they weren’t allowed any more captains challenges in that half. It didn’t matter for the Pups, centre Sam Seau scoring a try to take a 20-6 lead, before Souths finally hit back through tries to Aaron Gray and Jack Gosiewski right on half time.
The Dogs scored early in the second half to take their lead to 26-16 after 50 minutes, but couldn’t hold on. Tries to Irae Simone and Tom Hughes gifted Souths the lead with 15 minutes to go. They added one more to win the match 34-26.
Returning from a hand injury, Bulldogs half Denzel King thinks there’s room for improvement next week.
“First half was very good. Second half just needed good consistency in our football. We’d do a good thing and then we’d do a bad thing on the back of it, and it just kills us in the long run. That’s something we need to work on, but we’ve improved from the previous games which is a good sign,” said King.
Newcastle remain undefeated this season with 6 wins and 1 draw from their first 7 matches. With a points differential of +150, the Knights will look to big men such as Tuiala Togiatasi for their go forward, and then fullback Jacob Gagai and centre Chance Peni to finish it off.
The last time these two sides met was Round 17, 2013. The Bulldogs won 26-14.
