But what about the Dogs that score?

About to embark on his sophomore season as an NRL head coach, Dubbo boy Dean Pay has revealed he’s expecting his Canterbury Bulldogs side to pick up where it left off in 2018 and play expansive footy in a bid to make the finals.

The Bulldogs battled last season, winning just eight games on route to a 12^th place finish but tellingly lost eight matches by six points or less.

The club believes if they can reverse a couple of those results, and speed up their style of play in the new year, then the blue and whites can turn a few heads in 2019, and maybe even sneak into the NRL top eight.

“We’re sort of looking to play a bit of footy on the back of what’s in front of us, and generate a bit of ruck speed from that,” Pay, a Group 11 premiership-winning coach with Dubbo CYMS, said.

“I think you’ve got to take opportunity when it arises, and we did that at the back of last year.”

That play at the back-end of 2018 helped net the club score its best win of the season in round 24, smashing the finals-bound Dragons 38-0.

That came after a thrilling 27-26 victory over the Warriors in the previous round. In fact, the club accounted for half of its 2018 wins tally – including a victory over Brisbane – in the final six rounds of the season.

“We went away from that one-up and setting up for a play stuff,” Pay said.

“So we’ll continue with that style of footy (heading into 2019). We put a lot of time into it during the pre-season. We want to get better at it.”