Match Details
Match Date	25th Mar, 2012
Opponent	Newcastle
Result	Loss 6-20
Coach	Des Hasler
Captain	Michael Ennis
Venue	Homebush (ANZ Stadium)
Crowd	21,701
Referee	Ben Cummins Phil Haines

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs have handed over the beyondblue Cup to the Newcastle Knights, going down 20-6 in a disappointing performance at ANZ Stadium.

The Knights led by 12 nil at half time thanks to tries to Richie Fa'aoso and Jarrod Mullen, with the late return of skipper Kurt Gidley more than overcoming the pre-game loss of wing spearhead Akuila Uate.

The Bulldogs on the other hand toiled for much of the match without result, with dropped balls and penalties doing as much as the Knights could to shut them out of the match.

In the finish they only got on the board late when Joel Romelo scored his second such try in as many weeks in complete contrast to the joyous scenes that came when he scored with two minutes to play in last Sunday's win over the New Zealand Warriors.

The frustrating part about it is we probably never gave ourselves a chance, Bulldogs head coach Des Hasler said post match. And it was a slow old game, it was stop start, stop start. We contributed a large piece to that.

We were just terrible with the ball and of course that places more pressure on your defence.

They started well and we probably should have stepped up more. We tackled our way back into the game I thought, they only scored three tries to one, but they were just looking to play a bit of consistent footy.

It was as simple as getting through your sets. We were guilty of the opposite.

Completion rates told the story of the match, with the Knights completing at 82 percent compared to the Bulldogs 61 percent.

The ten times we were in attacking position we only completed two of them, Hasler said. It's just not up to standard, it just doesn't cut it.

[Completing at a high percentage is] what they've been looking for, that's what we've been doing reasonably well the past few weeks. Today's been a really good learning curve for us.

Making matters worse for the Bulldogs was the loss early of halfback Trent Hodkinson, who limped from the field with a medial ligament injury inside the opening ten minutes of play with the Knights already ahead 6-nil thanks to a converted try to Fa'aoso.
Hodkinson's prognosis will be known early in the week with an extended stint on the sidelines a possibility.

By the time Mullen scored the writing was all but on the wall for the Dogs, who were being out hustled by the Knights line speed as well as their own mistakes.

The Dogs had their chances over the back end of the first half without success, dropped balls continuing to haunt the home side in genuine scoring position.
Penalties were also a feature the count finishing at 7-4 against the Bulldogs and Gidley opened up a 14-nil lead with a penalty goal early in the second half.

The Dogs found the answer they were looking for with the match 50 minutes gone, Bryson Goodwin touching down off quick hands to the left however the try was called back on account of the last pass from Josh Morris going forward.

The result was gone when Alex McKinnon scored his side's third try with eight minutes left to play, the conversion making it 20-nil to the visitors.

Romelo's try was the lone highlight of a tough afternoon for the home side, Steve Turner's conversion bringing down the curtain on the 20-6 loss.

Source: AAP

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