Heading into the game, it would have been a result that fans would not have expected, but it happened – with the Bulldogs running away with a comprehensive 30-4 win at ANZ Stadium, against a rather poor Dragons team.
Despite the Dragons gaining the early ascendancy in the first 10-15 minutes, it was all Canterbury from then on in, with centre Josh Morris scoring a first-half hat-trick.
Although the win was comprehensive, Dogs coach Des Hasler does not want to get too carried away, hoping that his side can fly under the radar somewhat in 2012.
“I wouldn’t say we quite blew them off the park, we improved on what we wanted to do last week,” Hasler said.
“It’s early days, we’re a pretty young side so we’re still working hard at different parts of the game and we think there’s still a bit of work left to be done yet.”
Man of the match Morris also tried to dampen down the win.
“I won’t get too far ahead of myself,” he said.
“I was injured this time last year, so I just (hope to) stay injury-free for the first 10 rounds and reassess after that.”
Dragons coach Steve Price knows that his side has some work to do, and is  hopeful that last night was just, ‘one of those nights’.
“We made a lot on uncharacteristic errors, not of the Dragons standards – we were virtually never in the game,” he said.
“Through the trials and last week it’s (the discipline) been outstanding.”
NRL News Dally M Points
Josh Morris – 3
Greg Eastwood – 2
Aiden Tolman – 1