Match Details
Match Date	19th May, 2002
Opponent	Cronulla
Result	Win 48-22
Coach	Steven Folkes
Captain	Steve Price
Venue	Sydney Showground Homebush
Crowd	7,636
Referee	Tim Mander

After the Bulldogs' Nigel Vagana climbed back to the top of the league's tryscorers' list, Willie Mason said his teammate had been going through a bit of a "drought".

One wonders, then, how the giant prop would describe the predicament of Sharks coach Chris Anderson and his players after the club entered its worst slump in a decade yesterday.

Asked about Vagana's hat-trick of tries, Mason said: "It was good to see him get a few because Nigel's been going through a bit of a drought lately."

Vagana, who took his season's tally of tries to 10, hadn't crossed an opponents' tryline since the Bulldogs' 28-20 victory over the Warriors in round six - a week after the Sharks' last win.

Since beating Wests Tigers on April 13, the Sharks have now crashed to five successive defeats, the club's worst losing run since 1993, and frustrated fans are becoming more critical of Anderson's coaching. Nevertheless, Anderson remains unruffled.

"Everyone's writing us off and putting the boot in at the moment, but that's cool," he said after the match yesterday.

"They pay their money each week and they want a win.

"They get a bit emotional about it, but that's what the Shire's about. It's us that's got to turn it around."

But how? The side is still coming to terms with the flat attacking style introduced by Anderson this season, and surely it's not just a matter of clicking a switch and saying, "Hey, Presto", either - as Anderson's critics seem to believe.

Bulldogs coach Steve Folkes, Anderson's brother-in-law and former teammate, went into bat for the Sharks mentor.

"Today, I thought they played all right in patches and Brett Kimmorley was their best by far," he said.

"Hopefully, that will silence the people who think they know more than the Australian coach."

And recalling the Dogs' previous match, Folkes said: "I felt sorry for beating Penrith last week, too, when we probably didn't deserve to win.

"I spoke to [Panthers coach] John Lang after the game, and having been in that position myself, it's not a pleasant time when everyone wants your head.

"[But] I don't think the shortening of the 10 metres that's happened over the past month helps their [the Sharks'] style at all.

"We went from one extreme, with the speed of the play the ball and attack having all the dominance, but now I think it's gone the other way.

"Yet, there was still 70 points scored today.

"That's hard to work out."

Even more difficult to comprehend is the statistic showing that the Bulldogs completed just 10 of their 19 sets of six tackles in the second half - and still managed to score five tries.

Vagana got three of those, but it was only his first in the 62nd
minute that had any real impact on the result, by extending the home side's lead to 30-22.

Until then, the Sharks had kept in touch with their opponents following tries by Kimmorley either side of half-time and an individual effort by Matthew Johns in the 28th minute.

After Bulldogs centre Willie Talau crossed for his second try 12 minutes after the break, Kimmorley beat rival halfback Darrell Trindall to put new-comer fullback Luke MacDougall over six minutes later and reduce the margin to just two points, 24-22.

"We played good footy today for probably 50 minutes, but the 30 minutes that we didn't cost us nearly 50 points," Kimmorley said.

"I think we're probably putting a lot of pressure on ourselves, thinking we've got to stop this slide, but you don't win the comp in round 10.

"We're about ninth or 10th at the moment, so if we string three or four wins together we could be sitting in about fifth place.

"But it's hard because the fans probably don't realise how close we got to winning today. They just see the scoreline at the end."

For the Bulldogs, the win lifts them to outright second place, whereas they would have slipped to fifth with a loss.

"We're probably just cruising a little bit at the moment," Folkes said. "We're a lot better than we played today, I think we've probably fallen into a few bad habits."

Source: www.smh.com.au

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