Matt Attard previews the final game of Round 9: St. George Illawarra against Canterbury-Bankstown.
MATCHDAY NEWS
MATCHDAY SCHEDULE
St. George Illawarra Dragons Vs Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Venue: WIN Stadium, Wollongong.
Date: Sunday April 30, 4:05pm
MATCHDAY TEAM NEWS
Dragons: 1. Tyrell Sloan 2. Mathew Feagai 3. Moses Suli 4. Zac Lomax 5. Max Feagai 6. Talatau Amone 7. Ben Hunt 8. Michael Molo 9. Moses Mbye 10. Blake Lawrie 11. Ben Murdoch-Masila 12. Jack Bird 13. Jack de Belin 14. Jacob Liddle 15. Jaiyden Hunt 16. Toby Couchman 17. Josh Kerr 18. Zane Musgrove 19. Jayden Sullivan 20. Billy Burns 21. Viliami Fifita 22. Sione Finau
Bulldogs: 1. Hayze Perham 2. Declan Casey 3. Jake Averillo 4. Paul Alamoti 5. Braidon Burns 6. Josh Reynolds 7. Matt Burton 8. Max King 9. Reed Mahoney 10. Tevita Pangai Junior 11. Corey Waddell 12. Jacob Preston 13. Raymond Faitala-Mariner 14. Kurtis Morrin 15. Jayden Okunbor 16. Samuel Hughes 17. Ryan Sutton 19. Fa’amanu Brown 20. Karl Oloapu 21. Reece Hoffman 22. Jeral Skelton 23. Kyle Flanagan
Referee: Grant Atkins
Embed from Getty ImagesMATCHDAY PREVIEW
Both clubs are struggling here with injuries, there’s halves issues facing the Bulldogs, while the Dragons have question marks over the future of their coach.
Neither have failed terribly this year considering the circumstances, however the Bulldogs will go into this one as underdogs on the back of three horrible performances following a strong start to life under Cameron Ciraldo.
St George were excellent in patches against the Roosters in what was a huge ANZAC Day clash, however they were also extremely poor in patches and were buoyed by questionable refereeing, particularly the sin binning of Victor Radley.
Canterbury were also promising in patches, but without both starting wingers and a questionable bench rotation, their edge defence was horrendous – as it has been since injury struck.
Injuries aside, the Bulldogs must do better with the players they have and with a halves shake up this week (and the likely debut of sought-after youngster Karl Oloapu), surely things will start to click against a battered-up Dragons side.
LAST TEN MATCHES
Dragons 6, Bulldogs 4
MATCHDAY PREDICTION
Bulldogs by 12 points.
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