Canterbury Bulldogs head coach Cameron Ciraldo has claimed it won't take rocket science to fix his side for Week 1 of the NRL finals.
The Bulldogs, renowned for their defensive grit all season, will enter the finals on the back of two straight losses and a demolition job in the final round, having conceded 44 points at the hands of the North Queensland Cowboys on Saturday evening at Homebush.
In what was a disastrous performance for the horrendously understrength Bulldogs, Ciraldo's side were simply never in the game and will now need to back up next weekend against the Manly Sea Eagles, who they lost to in Round 26.
Despite that, Ciraldo said it was about his side getting an even share of possession.
“The last three weeks the first 20 or 30 minutes we've given up 60 or 70% possession. It's well documented we're not as big as some of those teams. If you want to give bigger teams that amount of possession you're going to put yourself under pressure,” Ciraldo said during his post-game press conference.
“We've done a really good job of that all year, just staying in the fight and going toe to toe and getting equal amounts of possession and earning field position through that.
“We haven't done it (in) the last two weeks.
“It's not rocket science. Just get those (things) right, we'll give ourselves a chance in the fight.”
Canterbury will also be alarmed by their record against top eight sides. Excluding eighth spot (the Bulldogs beat the Newcastle Knights twice, and the Dolphins and Canberra Raiders once each), the Bulldogs have won just two games against the other six finals-bound sides.
One of those was against the Sydney Roosters who lost Dominic Young to a send off before halftime, and the other against the Cronulla Sharks in golden point.
Despite that, the coach said his side are not in the finals to make up the numbers.
“We know what our system looks like and feels like when we get it right and if we get it right next weekend we give ourselves a chance to win,” he said.
They will point to injuries over the last fortnight however, with the club missing Matt Burton (concussion) and Josh Addo-Carr (ankle) during the game against North Queensland, while Kurt Mann, Bronson Xerri and Jeral Skelton were also out.
Burton and Addo-Carr are due back for their opening finals clash - and the club's first since 2016 - next weekend, but Ciraldo said those players won't fix all of the problems, although will ease some of the clunkiness in attack.
“They'll help us a little bit and give us a little bit more strike in attack, we were a little bit clunky in attack tonight and that put pressure on our defence tonight,” he said.