Despite a valiant effort from the Newcastle Knights, it was not enough to stop the Bulldogs juggernaut, with the Canterbury club winning their 10th straight game to cement first position on the NRL ladder.
Knights coach Wayne Bennett was disappointed at his side conceding 24 points in quick succession – something that seems to be a trend of late for the club.
“That has happened to us a few times this year, we have obviously got a few issues there,” Bennett said.
“We can’t give that kind of lead away against any team in the competition. We have done it three or four times I think and we have got it back once and been beaten three other times.”
Bennett said that despite that poor patch however, his side showed that they can match it with the competition heavyweights, outscoring the Dogs 10-2 in the last 62 minutes of the game.
“After about 25 minutes we started playing some football and we got back into the game,” Bennett said.
“If we could have contained that damage we could have made a game of it. We tried to make a game of it but we just gave up too much.”
Knights captain Danny Buderus could not pinpoint as to why his side let the opposition get out to a big lead early on, but he knows that it is costing his side the chance to win games.
“I just can’t work out these 20-point starts we are giving away,” Buderus said.
“It has happened a couple of times like Wayne said and we just can’t give away 24 points like that.”