The Bulldogs went into Friday night’s clash without two Origin stars and lost another one midway through the match. 

Newcastle didn’t have anyone in the NSW or Queensland camps and you could see why after a pedestrian performance in front of their 21,204 loyal fans at McDonald Jones Stadium who could put up with the rain but not their team’s lack of punch. 

Josh Addo-Carr scorched his way over for two tries before he hobbled off soon after half-time with a torn hamstring but the Dogs never looked like losing in a 32-2 romp. 

Twice they were down to 12 when referee Grant Atkins banished players to the sin bin for questionable professional foul calls.

And on both occasions, Newcastle not only couldn’t score despite having the numerical advantage but conceded a try.

For all the proponents of pausing the NRL during the Origin period, the Knights’ dismal display gave them extra ammunition although the only problem with that is that this team was not affected by the representative selections.

Dogs muscle up as Knights go to water

Canterbury were annoyed that they would be without five-eighth Matt Burton, who is the bench reserve for the NSW line-up on Wednesday night, as well as captain Stephen Crichton. 

But they made up for their lack of finesse with a wholehearted commitment to defence and a willingness to spread the ball wide when the right situation presented itself in the slippery conditions. 

Newcastle, on the other hand, have been without Kalyn Ponga for a month and also had Bradman Best on the sidelines but the rest of their roster is bereft of strikepower.

“We lacked a bit of creativity on the ball,” said beaten coach Adam O’Brien in a contender for understatement of the season, curiously putting it down to having a week off from the bye, claiming his players looked “distracted”.

“It’s been a long time that we’ve had a performance like that.

“We probably need to batten the hatches down and get off social media and don’t read too much of what you guys are going to write,” he added in the post-match media conference. “Maybe we were reading too much of that up until this one about how good we were going. Now we will look inwards and try and fix it.”

After losing Dominic Young in the off-season to the Roosters, they now have a roster full of honest toilers but zero in the X-factor department.

Halves duo Jackson Hastings and Jack Cogger sparked nothing, running sets to each edge which looked like a medium-paced opposed training session but the Canterbury defence ate up the meagre offerings even when they were a player down. 

The first sin-binning came in the sixth minute when Connor Tracey was ruled to have taken out opposing fullback David Armstrong even though Fox League analyst Cooper Cronk, after watching several replays, described the contest as “pretty fair, shoulder to shoulder”. 

Newcastle booted a penalty goal in the only moment in the match when they looked like getting the scoreboard attendant off their seat.

Addo-Carr opened Canterbury’s account when he trotted down the left flank, kicked ahead and after Armstrong slipped, he collected the Steeden on the fly to complete his trip to the try line.

He made it 10-2 in the 28th minute when the Dogs shuffled the ball wide, Drew Hutchison’s tap-on bouncing to the wing and Addo-Carr looked up to see Cogger in front of him, licked his lips and unfurled a classical winger’s in and away to touch down inside the cornerpost.

The Dogs stretched out to a 14-2 advantage early in the second half when Jacob Preston benefited from a no-look pass from Tracey.

If Newcastle were going to get back into the contest, they had a golden change a short time later when Canterbury half Toby Sexton was binned for making a tackle on the goal-line after not being square at marker. 

It definitely deserved a penalty but to say it was a professional foul was a step too far.

But again it didn’t matter because the Knights threw nothing at the defence and the Dogs rolled their way upfield for Josh Curran to score off a kick ricochet.

Preston added his second and Bronson Xerri broke free of some pathetic goal-line defence to complete the carnage for Canterbury.

Knights prop Jacob Saifiti was lucky not to be sent off altogether when he was sin-binned with a minute left on the clock for leading with his head, not thinking with it, after being taunted by Dogs hooker Reed Mahoney.

At least he didn’t wait for him in the tunnel like teammate Jack Hetherington the last time a dopey Newcastle forward fell for Mahoney’s bait.

His twin, Daniel, failed to finish the match with a medial ligament injury which will keep him out of next week’s trip to Melbourne.

Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo said their defence was starting to come together to his liking.

“To face the adversity of losing two guys in the sin bin, lose Foxx, to have guys defending everywhere – I think we had Kurt Mann playing front row at one stage, but they fight hard and compete on every play,” he said.

“In terms of most pleasing win, that’s right up there.”

Knights’ problems greater than a couple of injured stars

Newcastle weren’t just bad in attack, they were diabolical.

Their one-speed offensive strategy was reminiscent of Cronulla of a decade ago when they would camp themselves in the opposition’s red zone only for Paul Gallen to tuck the ball under his left wing to take a hit-up while the outside backs screamed for the ball in futility.

It’s not just the fact that Ponga and Best are out injured, it is a much bigger problem for this club which has stacked its roster with plodders with no flair.

Their defence is not terrible, although it was far from great on Friday night, but they have the second-worst attack in the NRL, saved only by the Wests Tigers’ chronic struggles to form a decent side.

Newcastle surged to fifth on the back of a surge in the second half of 2023, this year they will be lucky to make the playoffs even if Ponga can get back on the field sooner than his expected return in July.

This defeat cost Newcastle their tenuous grip on eighth spot with the Dogs taking it from them on percentages after also going 6-6 from the first half of their season schedule.