NRL Analysis: The Balance Of The Bulldogs Attack & How The Panthers Defended It

I opened up the mailbag on Instagram last week and landed on the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs attack and Isaiya Katoa’s game.

Katoa laid on two ripper try assists to perfectly capture his game in Round 17.

Unfortunately, the Bulldogs scored only six points as I made it halfway through a piece hyping up their attack. The positive is that the Penrith Panthers provided us with an interesting angle on how to defend against them.

First, how the Bulldogs have improved with the ball this season…

The Balance Of The Bulldogs Attack

I teased this in the Round 17 Review on Monday. If you caught that, jump to the rest of it HERE.

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs have improved their attack on last year after averaging 22 points per game to be putting up 25.4 points per game in this one (5th in the NRL).

They’ve been stacked with attacking talent all along, but have found a balance to their attack this season that has made them particularly dangerous.

Per Stats Insider, the Bulldogs couldn’t split their tries much better across the field.

On the edges, the Bulldogs are especially good at getting to the four-man and testing the defence of the opposing half and movements of the centre.

They like to play from around the posts with a lead and support runners compressing the middle, allowing their ball-players to engage the four-man and ask difficult questions of the three defenders out wide.

Both left and right, the Bulldogs will use a variety of passes and shapes, but the question is typically fairly similar in the end.

Where Reed Mahoney played straight to his half, who skipped out to the four-man above, they used a middle forward to shovel the ball onto Matt Burton, already on the outside shoulder of his man here:

There is a bit of the Panthers to how the Bulldogs attack. They like to put a lot of work into the middle by changing angles and looking for momentum carries back under.

We can go back to Round 11 against the Sydney Roosters to see it in action best.

Stephen Crichton is often used on a drop to fish across the line and find smaller defenders to generate momentum. You can see him make Connor Watson his target on this carry before Kurt Mann lays one to the middle.

You’ll notice the play-the-ball position and shape on the longside is similar to the actions above here, but with the line high and nothing on, Toby Sexton cuts back in, notably, back at Watson with Victor Radley also involved.

When Matt Burton rolls it in for a repeat set, the Bulldogs repeat the dose back up the field.

Watson and Radley, in particular, are regular targets. They get through a lot of work in back-to-back sets before the Bulldogs finally crack them open.

Again, it’s Sexton stepping back inside.

Again, it’s Watson and Radley involved in the tackle.

The work put into the middle through drop plays on the edges and Sexton carrying the ball eventually pays dividends. They’re set in a similar shape to the Raiders try above, but rather than taking the shovel pass to attack the three-man, Burton is the next man to make his move inside.

Fatigue has caught up with the Roosters middle as Radley is caught wrong-footed and Watson hasn’t closed the space behind him.

Left, right and through the middle, the Bulldogs have options. Where they might lack in size through the middle, they make up for it with their willingness to crash the ball regardless, and speed to execute when the cue is presented.

Against the Panthers, however, they came up against a well-drilled defensive machine that knows exactly how to defend that work through the middle.

How The Panthers Defended Them

If you look through the Roosters clips closely, you’ll see how often those players dropping under were able to get at the five-man. The ball player worked across the opposition backrower and dropped his mate off at the often smaller man one inside.

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