Bulldogs captain Reed Mahoney has labelled his side’s heavy 50-16 defeat at the hands of the Rabbitohs “pretty embarrassing”.
Canterbury-Bankstown, already dealing with a heavy injury toll this season, are now expected to lose Josh Addo-Carr for a stint on the sideline after he exited the field with what looked like a serious ankle injury in the first half.
But Mahoney and Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo refusued to use the side’s injury woes as an excuse.
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“We should have been able to handle it in some way, shape or form but when that happened we went into our shells, didn’t stick to the game plan and we paid the price,” Mahoney said.
“These are a few hard truths but we simply weren’t good enough and it was pretty embarrassing to be honest.
“The effort is there….We will have a look throughout the week on what we did wrong and what we did reasonably well.
“The best thing about footy is we have next week to fix it. We’ll stay together and move on.”
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Ciraldo admitted that the depth of the Bulldogs injury toll “isn’t ideal” and unlike anything he’s encountered before but said there is enough talent in the club to overcome it.
“We had moments we looked really good… We just aren’t doing the basics well enough in key periods,” Ciraldo said.
“Unfortunately we are dealing with a bad luck at the moment but that’s not why we lost in the manner we did today.
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“We have guys in our club who are capable of doing the job.
“We have a good reserve grade side, we have good up-and-coming young players but we just didn’t do the job today.
“We should have (Viliame) Kikau, (Tevita) Pangai and (Jayden) Okunbor back (next week) but unless we fix what we did out there today it doesn’t matter who comes back.
“If you pull on a Bulldogs jersey, you have to do better than that.”
