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Message: [QUOTE="Big Pete, post: 2776200, member: 1899"] [B]ROUND 26 2006 Penrith Panthers vs The Bulldogs[/B] [B]Penrith Panthers[/B] Rhys WESSER, Michael GORDON, Danny GALEA, Lee HOOKEY, Luke ROONEY Preston CAMPBELL, Craig TRINDALL Frank PULETUA, Luke PRIDDIS, Craig STAPLETON, Frank PRITCHARD, Tony PULETUA, Trent WATERHOUSE Interchange: Bryan NORRIE, Luke SWAIN, Paul AITON, Matt BELL [B]The Bulldogs[/B] Luke PATTEN, Hazem EL MASRI, Andrew EMELIO, Sonny-Bill WILLIAMS, Matt UTAI Daniel HOLDSWORTH, Brent SHERWIN Mark O'MELEY, Corey HUGHES, Chris ARMIT, Dallas MCILWAIN, Andrew RYAN, Reni MAITUA Interchange: Nate MYLES, Adam PERRY, Nick KOUSPARITSAS, Jarrad HICKEY The Bulldogs '06 were one of those weird sides I don't recall ever being especially good and yet they found themselves sitting comfortably in second place. My memory of the Bulldogs consists of them getting smashed by Newcastle, beaten on the buzzer by Melbourne, losing a tight one to the Raiders and being humbled on three separate occasions by the Broncos. Actually I lie, I do recall one game. It was against Wests where Mark O'Meley knocked out Gibbs. Even then, I recall Wests were like the lamb to the slaughters before the ball was even kicked. So going into this game, I'm expecting the Bulldogs to showcase their skills. They're a week out from the finals against a team that has nothing to play for. In Queensland, the Broncos are running a train through the Warriors, TC is smashing ribs, Hodges is making the defence look like statues so I would have thought the Bulldogs would be keen to make a statement. Honestly, I thought they were lucky to take this win. Canterbury won 30-22, but the difference was the boot of Hazem El Masri who nailed 5/5, in contrast to the Panthers 1/5. I don't think any of their tries came from good pieces of play either. Armit just crashed his way over one pass off the ruck, easy as you like. Patten received an offload and tore through a lazy gap from Puletua. He then did the same thing when Pritchard failed to close a gap and Trindall was too lazy to turn inside. Their forth try was a result of Galea racing off the line and taking no one, giving the Dogs an easy 3-1. Finally, McIlwain's 80m try was against the run of play as the Dogs received a lucky ricochet and it went to the one player who happened to be on-side. Meanwhile, Penrith looked the most likely despite losing Rooney and Campbell part-way through the clash. They had a proverbial skeleton crew out there, but in Puletua & Pritchard they had enough rocks and diamonds to trouble the Dogs and Wesser constantly kept them on high alert. As an aside, I thought Michael Gordon had a quality game. He reminded me a lot of Anthony Minichiello back in his prime where it seemed like he was good for at least one tackle-break. Very reminiscent of Mansour these days, except Gordon had more pace. Outside of him and Wesser, it's amazing how poor the rest of the backline was. Rooney at 23 was a has-been, Hookey was all-pace and not much else and Galea was just awful. I know they had Lewis missing, but it amazes me how they had to carry those three players. Especially now that Penrith seem to have a treasure trove of backs and would unearth Michael Jennings next year. I had a real soft spot for Gordon back then and recall him being a shining light in an otherwise forgettable year. I also remember Aiton being a quality player as well...and it just wasn't the case. I guess it's because quick dummy halves impressed me back then, but Aiton had no real sense of direction and his play from dummy half really hurt the Panthers flow. My only defence is that Priddis by this point was a shadow of himself and there were probably performances where Aiton came on and looked much better than he really was. As for the Bulldogs, I was really intrigued by their halves. I remember Holdsworth was fairly gun in 2006 and you could make the argument that he was a better player than Anasta at that time. Whatever inspired that thinking wasn't on display here. He controlled most of the Bulldogs attack in the first half and it was dreadful. He must have had some decent performances because here he looked like he was playing up a grade. Sherwin was mostly invisible and only contributed with some of the kicks. Sherwin reminds me a lot of Adam Reynolds in the sense that he had one facet to his game that was world class. However, everything else was shockingly average. The only try assist he came up with was putting McIlwain into space while Penrith were trying to recover from the ricochet. I also remember SBW was really average in 2006. He'd really come into his own in 2007 and was my choice for Dally M backrow of the year, but in 06 he seemed like the type of player who would just as likely make a mistake as he would create something. Fortunately he was better than Andrew Emelio who honestly would have to make a worst ever 17 for the Bulldogs. The Panthers kept targeting him and it paid dividends for the most part. I sort of miss the way the game was played in 06. It seemed a little rougher around the edges, with a lot more common sense involved. The only commonality is that Gus is still complaining about correct calls. This time, it was about double movements and how the rule shouldn't exist. All this, when Pritchard is denied for a text-book example. 10 years on, and we still have Gus trying to defend the indefensible. [/QUOTE]

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