It was Round 25; late August 2024.
Around this time, we all started to sit up and seriously take notice of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. The results of the outstanding Cameron Ciraldo- and Phil Gould-inspired resurgence, which was bringing the famous club from the cellar to the promised land of Premiership contention, were now evident to all.
The Bulldogs โ unbeaten for a month and only vanquished once in the previous seven games โ were on the march. But their mettle was about to be tested by a trip to Auckland to face the New Zealand Warriors.
The Warriors โ a team that had enjoyed their own resurgence a season before under another former Penrith Panthers assistant coach, Andrew Webster โ are always a tough proposition at home in the Harbour City.
The Bulldogs dismantled them. It was a game I analysed in depth.
I sensed the Bulldogs won because they'd been coached very well. Their core skills were on point, their players were industrious, fit, and well-drilled. The chatter had begun in the media about their form, their premiership credentials, and their potential invincibility, so my coaching instinct decided to look at ways this footballing machine could be stopped and I found plenty.
It was obvious to me that Canterbury had a team that relished defending. Their off-season recruitment had assembled a group that loved digging deep to do the tasks that more flashy players and teams sometimes aren't so keen to do.
In 2025, that defence is once again performing excellently. They have shut out their last two opponents; keeping the Knights and Rabbitohs scoreless, and have conceded the fewest points in the league by far, so far.
Yet - as with any defensive system employed by any coach anywhere in the history of the sport - there is always a way to unlock it. The โup and in' elements of the Dogs' defensive system can provide opportunities to the attacking team, just like any other, and I worked that out in this study back in August 2024.
For the uninitiated, there are several defensive systems and ideas out there, but you can, essentially, group them into two main ones โ โup and out' and โup and in'
โUp and out' encourages players to stand tighter in the defensive line and slide across the field in tandem, moving up initially and then out towards the sidelines - as the name suggests.
โUp and in' is essentially the opposite as defensive players stand wider apart, move up the field first, and then in towards the play.
After releasing my โHow to Beat the Dogs' analysis, it was a big dose of cognitive bias (and maybe delusion) that led to my explanation that someone on the relevant coaching staffs had been listening to my technical blueprint, as first Manly Sea Eagles, then North Queensland Cowboys racked up the points against the Bulldogs in the next two weeks. This previously excellent defensive unit from Belmore went on to concede 78 points in the last two weeks of the regular season.
The finals arrived, and Manly once again travelled to the Canterbury kennel and came away with the doggy treats. A very promising season had petered out with three straight losses, and it was over for another year.
Dig a little deeper, though, and you will see another reason that could explain why the Bulldogs fell off the face of the earth when it mattered most.
That excellent win in Auckland in Round 25 came only six days after the Bulldogs had beaten the Dolphins heavily; at โhome'.
Only this time, the Bulldogs โhome' was in Bundaberg, Queensland โ 1,272 kilometres away from the real home in Belmore, New South Wales. This meant the Dogs would have travelled back to Sydney after that match and done very little, if any, training before packing their bags again for the 2,156 kilometres trip to Auckland, and a different time zone.
They didn't feel the effects whilst in the land of the long white cloud, but they would have felt them in the weeks following. Our brutal game is hard enough to recover from without having to travel extensively. Anyone who has been on a plane for longer than an hour will know travel can take it out of you, so throw that into the mix and it's obvious that elite professional players have a real challenge to make sure they're in tip-top shape after two plane trips of three hours, a few days after two trips of approximately two hours, each.
Either the Bulldogs had been unlocked technically, or they just couldn't beat the schedule โ or likely, it was a combination of both.
Using this as a guide, it could give spectators an explanation as to why the high-flying, Craig Bellamy-coached Melbourne Storm dropped off a cliff in the second half against the Dolphins last week. After 20 minutes, their 16-0 lead looked very promising. Sixty playing minutes later, they'd shipped in 40 unanswered points, before scoring a consolation just before the final hooter.
The previous week, the Dolphins played at home on a Thursday, while the Storm played Sunday (three sleeps later) and then embarked on a two-hour flight to Brisbane after only five nights' recovery.
In the same round, seven of the eight fixtures went the way of the team who'd had at least an extra day rest than their opposition, or weren't playing away after a big trip โ right then and there or the week before. It was quite a similar tale in the previous round also.
Using this theory, the Canberra Raiders are looking really good after travelling to Las Vegas, Townsville, Darwin and the Gold Coast already since the season commenced. Their travelwill reduce significantly for the rest of the year.
Using the same theory also suggests that the NRL schedule has been very kind to the Canterbury Bulldogs. Very kind, as their trip to Brisbane this Thursday will be their first foray out of Sydney! Yet they can take comfort in the fact their opponents - the Brisbane Broncos - were in Auckland playing out a tough one last Saturday, while the Dogs were tucked up in their own beds, after racking up the points against the Rabbitohs well over 24 hours before.
I don't gamble often, but I did place a $10 bet on the Dogs to beat South Sydney heavily that day. It wasn't reported at all, but the Bulldogs were coming off the bye, whilst their vanquished opponents had endured the longest trip of the lot, to Perth, only six days before. (Gamble responsibly, folks!)
So, in terms of scheduling, travel and recovery times, what does the rest of the year look like for the Canterbury outfit?
Granted, their next three fixtures are either up north in Queensland or in Canberra, but the turnarounds between matches are favourable. Don't be surprised if their winning run is halted at some point in the next three weeks because of the sheer weight of travel.
But don't worry, Doggies faithful!
Mid-May sees the Canterbury lads firmly ensconced in the Greater Sydney conurbation for the next two months! And just for good measure, in June, their two games in Sydney will be bookended with bye weekends on either side!
There are no five-day turnarounds for the Bulldogs for the rest of this year. After June, they only have to leave Sydney twice, with one of those another trip to New Zealand in August.
Whilst scheduling is one metric, the opposition is also rather important! So, who have they been drawn against before and since?
They finished sixth in season 2024 and have so far had to play only one team from above them on the ladder last year - the Cronulla Sharks. The next one in this category is the Roosters in the middle of May, and we all know the Bondi boys are not the force they were. They've got the Chooks again in mid-August.
They don't play last year's premiers, Penrith, until the end of June. They don't travel to Townsville to play the Cowboys (fifth) until 12th July. They also finally meet the Storm over a month later and have to travel there, before games against the Panthers and Sharks to close out the regular season
Basically, their schedule gets tougher from June onwards.
The draw matters - hugely. The reason I picked up on the scheduling issue of Round 24 and 25 of the 2024 season was because of a little something somebody hinted at in the media at the time. They were previewing the game against Manly in Round 26 and very subtly highlighted the difficulties the Dogs would face that week after trips to Bundaberg and Auckland.
It was Phil Gould. General Manager of Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs!
A perspective worth listening to.
Lee Addison is a former Sea Eagles and Panthers coach and the founder of rugbyleaguecoach.com.au. His recently published book โRugby League Coach' is available now on Amazon and www.rugbyleaguecoach.com.au
