Half plus half equals zero

The Bulldogs have shown some mettle, but their attack remains in the Bronze Age

Firstly, a programming note on the radio silence over the last few weeks. If you were wondering where these newsletters had been and were wondering if there was anything sinister at play, I am deeply sorry to inform you that for the first time in my 28 years of existence, I had a thriving social calendar for three weeks in a row.

Between weddings, attending the Formula One in Melbourne and being an Italian at Easter, the honest truth is I’ve just not been able to watch enough footy to remain informed recently, so I didn’t want to pump out words for the sake of words.

But, we’re back, so let’s continue.

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Before the start of the season, if you had paid even passing attention to the cacophony of ladder predictions resonating around the empty halls of the internet, you would’ve noticed that a vast majority of these predictions had the Bulldogs nestling somewhere in and around, well, dead last.

A cursory glance across the roster didn’t exactly inspire optimism, and while Stephen Crichton is a fantastic player, a young superstar possessing invaluable big game experience and poise beyond his years, the rest of the recruitment strategy was confusing at best, addressing areas of little consequence, while failing to shore up the biggest weakness in the team, the middle of the field.

Max King is a serviceable middle forward. If the City-Country game was still a thing, he’d fall right in the sweet spot of honourable regional representative without ever sniffing the State of Origin arena. But he’s kind of it.

On Friday, the Bulldogs starting middle was Max King, Liam Knight and Jaeman Salmon, an uninspiring triumvirate if ever I’ve seen one. And yet? I thought they played okay. Not with raw dynamism or anything (they certainly won’t be mistaken for thoroughbreds) but as a unit they didn’t get monstered by the Rabbitohs pack (which has, to be fair, underperformed against expectations).

Max King was effective with his running, and while Salmon and Knight were pretty non-existent with ball in hand (94 metres combined), Josh Curran and Kurt Mann picked up the slack off the bench, each running for over 100 metres, with Kurtis Morrin adding 63 in his 23 minutes.

Defensively, outside of Salmon (who missed six tackles, most after his reshuffle to the back row to compensate Jacob Preston going off), that entire middle unit missed three tackles, a strong effort.

Now I don’t love just pointing to baseline running metres and tackles made as stats to paint any form of advanced narrative, because empty calories can be easily formulated in these numbers, but when you’re building from below rock bottom like the Bulldogs are, it’s worth pointing out any mere sign of a backbone.

The Dogs had more time in possession so the extra 140 running metres isn’t overly impressive, but considering the rest of the team collectively forgetting the core tenets of rugby league (hold the goddamn ball), the Dogs were in this game right up to their eyeballs, thanks largely to the stoutness of their middle rotation.

Which brings me to the real crux of the issue at Belmore, the halves.

Again, casting your mind back to preseason expectations, on paper, the Dogs with more utilities than a Monopoly board and flashy outside backs with little forward substance were a popular spoon pick. The problem is, as Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, wooden spoons aren’t made with paper.

I may be misremembering his exact prose.

Fast forward to now, with a four game sample size under our belts, were we too harsh on the Bulldogs and consigning them to the dustbin? Maybe not, but I think it’s fair to say that they’ve exhibited a base level of actual determination and competence to say that they’ll be in more games than they were last year.

There’s value in dragging more talented teams down into the muck and beating them with experience, just ask the Canberra Raiders.

The Bulldogs don’t have a glittering forward pack, especially in the middle, there’s questions about fullback and how long before Stephen Crichton replaces Vincent Adultman as the custodian, and the world is still waiting for something from Matt Burton.

But Drew Hutchison was the biggest difference this past Friday, and not in a good way.

If I was a Bulldogs fan, I would have considered committing several felonies after the 24th botched overlap as Hutchison decided to take the line on instead of shifting the ball out wide for Jacob Preston and Jacob Kiraz to attack a retreating, scrambling defence.

Hutchison ran 13 times for a whopping 94 metres with a singular tackle break (which happened to be a line break funnily enough). His running game would not make the top ten things I think of when asked to list the strengths of Hutchison (whether there’d be ten things at all is another story entirely).

Hutchison running the ball that many times is a failure of process, a break down in the game plan, because his running game allows defences to reset. His struggle to generate post contact metres as a runner slows down play the balls, and the knock on effect means there’s less room for the next play. Of course he should run the ball to keep defences honest, but not that frequently, and not in the situations he chose on Friday.

Hutchison’s poor play has affected Matt Burton too, with Burton’s athleticism and natural ability coming at somewhat of a cost to him as he’s been asked to play both sides more in 2024, something he’s never done at senior level.

Burton isn’t blameless, mind you. He too has sideways tendencies, his running game hasn’t been as prominent and even his kicking game is lacking some penetration. Sometimes when I watch the Bulldogs it feels like Hutchison is playing ad-lib and unstructured while Burton is going through the motions and trying to be the mature old head.

It all feels a bit backwards.

Outside of a lavish pounding of the Gold Coast Titans (which, considering what we now know about the Titans, ehh), the Dogs attack has struggled for fluidity, and while good teams are built on the undesirable parts of the game, something the Dogs have taken steps forward in this year, their futile efforts to score points has cost them key moments in winnable spots this year.

The halves need to be better for the Bulldogs to take that genuine step forward this year. I’m not saying they’re going to be challenging for the top eight, because that’s clearly not going to happen, but we’ve heard so much about bridge years and building for the future and forward planning that it’s beginning to sound like a scene out of Utopia.

I don’t know what the solution is at halfback, but the Bulldogs aren’t exactly short of creative ways to plug gaps, even if those options are all equally uninspiring. As John Madden said, “if you have two quarterbacks you have none,” but that might be the Bulldogs best path forward.

For starters, I think it would behoove the Dogs to take another look at Toby Sexton in the top grade next to Burton. Is he the future? Probably not, but there’s no point sitting on a rapidly aging soon-to-be 29 year old when you have a 23 year old who could still be something waiting in the wings. Sexton has 3 try assists and 2 linebreak assists in his 3 NSW Cup games this year. Hardly gaudy numbers, but we know what Hutchison is, there’s no point persisting in what’s shaping to be another tough season, take a gamble on the ceiling.

The Bulldogs, after a year of buzzwords and coachspeak from Cameron Ciraldo, have actually begun crawling towards something resembling a football team. The horses still aren’t there long term, but there’s signs of a shift in attitudes. It’s time to let go of the rope of the safe old halfback and throw a few darts at the board.

You can’t keep going sideways forever.

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Welcome to Season 2 of Beyond the Goalpost. If you’re new here, thanks for reading, you should subscribe so these hit your inbox in the future, it’s free.

I want to do more this year after a reasonably successful first year last year. Whether that’s mailbags, more in depth stuff, collaborations with other writers, or (god forbid) podcasts (Substack has a feature I am yet to explore), I want to do what you, the reader, wants, so please get in touch.

Also, these newsletters are becoming harder to share and spread with Twitter, the main source of traffic last year, melting in on itself, so if you know someone who you think would like these editions, please forward them on, it would be greatly appreciated.