A Josh Reynolds field goal in the 84th minute has secured the Bulldogs a 21-20 win over the Gold Coast Titans in a golden point thriller at ANZ Stadium.
QUOTES
"We didn't manage it as good as we should have at 20-8. You go on with the game from there and that's what we need to get better at. We didn't close the game out last week and we very nearly paid a heavy penalty for not closing the game out this week. That's something we have to be mindful of and something we can't let happen again. Our lapses are totally self-inflicted." – Des Hasler sums up the Bulldogs performance.
"We're still slow to get out of the blocks in our first halves. That's frustrating. But I think we showed some real dominance at times with our forwards in the middle against a quality team. The boys can hold their heads up high with that performance but at the end of the day we haven't got two competition points. We had an opportunity with a few minutes to go before we went into golden point to do something but we missed a couple of opportunities with our shots at field goal." - Neil Henry on the Titans performance.
"It shouldn't have got to golden point. We killed ourselves again this week. We were lucky to get the win but there are parts of our errors and penalties again that have cruelled us so we definitely want to work on that.” – Josh Reynolds on the Bulldogs performance.
“I was just trying to lift the boys a little bit and say the right things or act the right way in trying to get the boys to get the result. I was just trying to get the boys to find a way to get the win.” – James Graham on that moment after Josh Hoffman scored.
“Obviously our last four games we've come home strongly but it's just, as Neil said, it's our structural errors in defence that are really costing us. We had three errors on short sides today that we just need to show confidence within each other and they don't get to a lead like that. It's a whole different ball game." - Nathan Friend finds the positives from the Titans loss.
“They’re obviously a very good side. Their up there with the best of them with what we have seen this year. We’re probably going to have to lift if we are going to compete with Parramatta next week.” – James Graham looks towards round 9.
NOTES
- Greg Eastwood celebrated his 200th NRL match.
- Aiden Tolman, James Graham, Will Hopoate, Josh Morris and David Klemmer all ran over 200m.
- Josh Jackson scored his first try of the season.
- The Bulldogs registered their first home win of the season.
- Josh Reynolds kicked his fourth field goal in his NRL career.
