Bulldogs to target Thurston on the sly
Greg Prichard | September 7, 2007
The suspension of Sonny Bill Williams for his late and high hit on Johnathan Thurston won't stop the Bulldogs from putting the heat on the North Queensland playmaker again tomorrow night - they just plan to be smarter about it this time.
"You have to try to cut down the amount of time he's got with the ball in his hands," Bulldogs captain and second-rower Andrew Ryan said yesterday. "You've got to try to get to him, but not go outside the boundaries.
"It [the challenge by Williams] went a bit wrong, but that can happen sometimes
We've still got to try to put pressure on him, but we've got to do it without breaking the rules."
Ryan said the Bulldogs were well aware of what they had to improve on their performance against the same opponents in last weekend's final round. The Cowboys led 38-10 before Thurston left the field midway through the second half and the Bulldogs rallied to within six points.
"We didn't match them for attitude and enthusiasm," Ryan said. "They were bouncing up to play the ball quickly and I think our defence was a bit off the pace. They beat us through the middle of the ruck. They've got players like [Aaron] Payne and [David] Faiumu who are good at taking off quickly and getting out of there.
"They worked well on the ground. You've got to do that, but we didn't do it nearly well enough. We weren't patient enough. We took a few wrong options and we didn't play for the 80 minutes. We need to be intense and patient and get our defence right for 80 minutes. We're in that position where, if we lose, we won't know what is going to happen to us until the rest of the games are played. We don't want to have to go through that."
If they lose at Dairy Farmers Stadium, the sixth-placed Bulldogs will have to depend on both seventh-placed South Sydney (against Manly at Brookvale Oval tomorrow night) and eighth-placed Brisbane (against Melbourne at Olympic Park on Sunday) losing the remaining qualifying finals.
The Dogs have lost Williams, but get fellow representative forward Mark O'Meley back from injury.
North Queensland, meanwhile, are without four regular starting forwards - injured trio Luke O'Donnell, Shane Tronc and Steve Southern, and the suspended Sione Faumuina.
Chief executive Peter Parr said yesterday that it was impossible to fluke a win against a Bulldogs pack that last week included Ryan, Williams, Willie Mason and Reni Maitua, and that the North Queensland forwards had not got the credit they deserved.
"People tend to not rate guys like Sam Faust, Matt Bartlett and Mark Henry just because they don't know them," Parr said. "But that's not fair. If you have a closer look, you'll see that they can play. They bring enthusiasm and a great attitude to their job.
"They don't pretend they are Sonny Bill Williams. They're not attention seekers. They just concentrate on doing their job, and they're doing it pretty well at the moment. A team doesn't win five games in a row, like we have, unless its forwards are firing.
"Our forwards are very determined in defence. They are effective and they deserve more credit than people give them. But it doesn't really bother them. The reward, for them, is that they get to play in front of a big home crowd again this week."
Parr said the Cowboys were expecting a different Bulldogs team this time. "They're going to be fired up, that's for sure," he said. "After last week, they'll come back here with the mentality that they know what they have to do if they want to win and it will be up to us to stop them again."
http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/dogs-to-target-thurston-on-the-sly/2007/09/06/1188783416152.html
