\u201cIt\u2019s always unfair. It\u2019s the way it is,\u201d he said. \u201cKyle\u2019s great, he\u2019s got a great head on him. He just focuses on him and us as a team. Atko\u2019s going to help him and he\u2019s going to help Atko – they\u2019re our halves, we\u2019re going to back them until they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw what Kyle did for us last year. He was great for us last year. He was one of the most consistent in our team all year, and he played every minute of every game. If you\u2019re doing that in the NRL you\u2019ve obviously got something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much is also being thrust on the shoulders of Atkinson, who was signed from Cronulla on a three-year contract.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old was stuck behind Nicho Hynes and Braydon Trindall at the Sharks and is straight into the hot seat at St George Illawarra.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants a chance to prove himself as a [number] seven and since the day he turned up he\u2019s been loud, he\u2019s been talking,\u201d Gutherson said.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s learned off a couple of great players in \u2018Tricky\u2019 [Trindall] and Nicho at the Sharks, so he\u2019s got a lot of experience there, and as I said, he\u2019s coming here for an opportunity to lead a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been given the seven and the keys to our team and now it\u2019s up to him to make sure he does everything right.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a 15th-placed finish last season, the joint venture club are naturally underdogs against the Bulldogs, who are fifth favourites to win the competition.<\/p>\n
Gutherson said Canterbury deserved to have the attention on them but admitted the Dragons also have a lot riding on the early stages of the season despite not being considered finals contenders by many.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got heaps to lose,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know the team we want to be and we\u2019ve got standards in our team that we want to live up to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re not doing that, there\u2019s, there\u2019s pressure. If you\u2019re not doing that, you\u2019re not going to be in the [squad of] 17 or 19 this year, and it starts Saturday. We\u2019re here to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s always unfair. It\u2019s the way it is,\u201d he said. \u201cKyle\u2019s great, he\u2019s got a great head on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-505084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}