Darren ArthurMar 20, 2026, 09:00 AM

CloseDarren has been a keen follower of sport his entire life, developing a strong love of rugby league, cricket, baseball and just about any competitive event involving an Australian athlete. Darren’s editorial journey included stops at AOL|7, Wide World of Sports and Sportsfan.

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On watching the Bulldogs scrape home against the Raiders in the torrential Canberra rain, I was left wondering whether they are amongst the most inept attacking sides in the competition or whether they used the perfect wet-weather game plan to ensure victory.

The Bulldogs only put on two genuine, structured, attacking plays all night resulting in their only two tries. Although frustrating to watch, was it a masterstroke of planning in the awful conditions? And what about their Las Vegas escape against the Dragons, surely that was pure luck from a side struggling without a true halfback or any semblance of forward dominance? Or was it another example of this team making the most of their limitations?

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After stumbling their way to victory in Vegas, the Bulldogs had three weeks off before travelling to Canberra on a night when the awful weather kept many Green Machine fans at home. Both teams climbed into the trenches for what was to be a tough, attritional night of defensive rugby league.

The Raiders scored the first try of the night after just four minutes with new Bulldogs centre Enari Tuala caught a long way infield and unable to stop a pass which lead to Savelio Tamale having too much room out wide.

The Raiders enjoyed the early flow of possession, but the Bulldogs were able to scramble and keep them from crossing again. When they had the ball, the Bulldogs were well contained as Canberra began to attack with defensive pressure. The visitors were happy enough to play one-out football, banking on the kicking game of Matt Burton to gain supremacy.

The Bulldogs’ defence swarms around Josh Papalii of the Raiders. Mark Nolan/Getty Images

With all the fuss over Stephen Crichton moving to left centre, which reportedly set in motion the disgruntlement of Bronson Xerri, the Bulldogs’ first try ironically came from a set play which saw Crichton sweeping around to the right. After breaking the front line, the Bulldogs skipper slipped a pass for Connor Tracey to score, with Crichton missing the conversion to leave the Bulldogs trailing 6-4.

It was the Bulldogs’ turn to dominate possession with high tackles, offside calls and ruck infringements returning to haunt the ill-disciplined Raiders. Two penalty goals saw the Bulldogs take an 8-6 lead.

The Canberra crowd, soaked to the bone on the miserable night, were roaring their disapproval of the referee’s penalty and set restart counts which were favouring the visitors. The Raiders have had discipline issues in each of their three starts this season and with the annoying six again bell ringing more often than ever this season, it is a costly problem they really need to sort out.

Stephen Crichton of the Bulldogs offloads to Connor Tracey for their first try. Mark Nolan/Getty Images

With all the ball, and 19 tackles inside the Raiders’ red zone, the Bulldogs attack stalled time and again. Viliame Kikau was ineffective on the left edge, continually turning inside where the swarming lime green jerseys wrapped him up. In defence, his charges out of the line looked menacing, but, more often than not, failed to find the mark, easily stepped or deflected.

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Lachlan Galvin was very busy, but his timing was off, causing Jacob Preston some issues as he tried to cut through on the right. Apart from one notable break, and a couple of good kicks, Matt Burton was relatively quiet.

Into the second half the Bulldogs decided to pepper Xavier Savage’s wing with the high ball which he defused with only one slight mishap.

With just under half an hour to go in the game, Bailey Hayward left the field, Jaeman Salmon returned and Kurt Mann moved to hooker. Hayward defends well enough up the middle, but he was playing a very bland style of football from dummy-half. It was reminiscent of watching an under 10s game played with the two pass minimum rule. At dummy-half would be the player who could best pick up the ball and shovel it straight to the first receiver, job done. With little to no running threat, Hayward made it easy for the opposition marker defence.

Matt Burton kicked the Bulldogs towards victory against the Raiders. Mark Nolan/Getty Images

Errors started to creep into the Bulldogs game and the Raiders started to enjoy more of the ball. Hudson Young dropped the ball near the line twice, and Sebastian Kris was held up over the line as the desperate Bulldogs’ defence, with Tracey a standout, scrambled to maintain their 8-6 lead.

Hayward returned and with his refreshed legs finally darted from dummy-half in a set play where he worked an inside ball to Tracey which saw Galvin dragged down 15 metres short of the Raiders’ line, From the ensuing play-the-ball, Josh Curran put Preston over under the posts, taking the score to 14-6 after the conversion. It was as though the Raiders had become so comfortable with Hayward doing nothing with the ball that they were totally caught off guard by the well executed play.

Still, the Raiders are seemingly never dead and a brilliant interchange of passes between everyone crammed into a short left side, saw Tamale race away for his second try. With the conversion hitting the posts the Raiders trailed 14-10 with the clock running against them.

A last-tackle towering kick by the Raiders was allowed to bounce by the Bulldogs and in the ensuing scramble an ill-advised kick off the ground by Crichton gifted Canberra another six tackles. To their credit the Bulldogs desperately managed to keep them out, but there was still time for another Canberra raid.

This time on the last tackle Ethan Sanders dummied and ran the ball. The stoic right shoulder of Tracey five metres from the try line was the only thing that stood in the way of a Raiders try followed by a straight forward conversion to win the game.

The Bulldogs had done it again. A mountain of resilience in defence coupled with an absolute bare minimum of attacking flair to narrowly outscore an opponent.

If you were to paint the most optimistic picture of what the Bulldogs did on a rainy night in Canberra, you might suggest that they played the rugby league equivalent of Muhammad Ali’s famous rope-a-dope fight against George Foreman. Bouncing off the ropes, absorbing their opponent’s biggest shots, they waited for the best possible opportunities to attack and then fully capitalised.

If you were to be more realistic, you would concede that they have a long way to go before they will be able to score enough points to defeat the likes of Penrith or Melbourne.