MARK ‘SPUDD’ CARROLL: Canterbury Bulldogs decimated the Brisbane Broncos minus Stephen Crichton

I can’t believe the incredible transformation taking place at the Bulldogs this season.

They’ve gone from the Dogs of Snore to the Dogs of War.

Their performance against the Broncos – a commanding 41-16 win at Suncorp Stadium – was straight from the top-shelf.

I reckon even hardcore Doggies fans feared the worse when captain Stephen Crichton was ruled out before kick-off.

But they completely dominated a Brisbane team that was supposedly desperate to keep their finals hopes alive.

This was another win built on the back of Canterbury’s defence. The Broncos had plenty of early ball in good field position, but just couldn’t find a way through.

Then the Dogs flung the ball around like I haven’t seen them do in years.

Guys like Connor Tracey, Jeral Skleton and Jacob Kiraz had a field day.

This was bloody entertaining stuff from the Dogs.

For the past few years you’d rather watch grass grow than a Bulldogs game.

They were rudderless with the ball – very predictable - and paper-thin in defence.

But while the attack was great against Brisbane, I keep coming back to their defence.

They have the second-best record behind premiers Penrith – and guess where their coach comes from?

Yep, Cameron Ciraldo was the defensive coach at the Panthers before making the switch and now the Dogs are finally getting the hang of it.

They are playing with grit and grunt, just like the old ferocious Canterbury teams that won four premierships in the 1980s.

This year they’re conceding an average of 16 points a game. In 2023, it was 32 points a game.

They remind me a lot of the Manly sides I played in back in the 1990s. We made three straight grand finals and it was built on the back of brickwall defence.

We would hold out the opposition for three sets and then – bang – score a try at the other end.

Teams would get so frustrated that they couldn’t crack us. While they were scratching their heads, we would take advantage and put points on the board.

Sound familiar? That’s exactly what the Dogs did at Suncorp.

Like they say, if you get your defence right, the attack will come.

The Bulldogs also have much better depth this year. They lose a player like Crichton and bring in Skelton – a former Rugby Sevens star who’s built like the proverbial brick outhouse.

Based on what we saw on Saturday, maybe they can go a little deeper into September than what I thought.

Other teams will be looking nervously over their shoulders right now.

As for the Broncos, after a great win over the Knights and with Adam Reynolds back from injury, I saw them making a run for the premiership.

They didn’t want to do the hard work and got smashed.

It’s clear to me the Broncos are paying the price for not adequately replacing Tom Flegler, Herbie Farnworth and Kurt Capewell when they left after last year’s grand final.

They are hard-working players and are sorely missed. The Broncos now face a huge task just to play finals.

I can’t wait for this Sunday afternoon when the Bulldogs head back to their spiritual home of Belmore Sports Ground to take on the Raiders.

This is where the Dogs of War sides from the old days used to bash teams.

It’s going to be jam-packed and the fans are right on top of you, hurling abuse.

Good luck Raiders!

AND DON’T GET ME STARTED

The vision of Des Hasler giving his Titans side a halftime spray during their game against the Dolphins was hilarious to me.

I played with Des at Manly in the ‘90s and you’d hardly get “boo” out of him. He was so quiet and would always be apologising.

He was given the nickname of “Sorry”.

But whatever he said at Suncorp did the trick because the Titans came from 14-0 down to win 21-14.

Maybe Dessie learned a few things from our old coach Bob Fulton. Bozo was good for a spray.

I know from first-hand experience that giving your players a blast can help.

In 1991 I was at the Rabbitohs, and we played a terrible game and got thrashed.

Our coach then was a guy called Frank Curry and he ripped into us at training on Monday.

I thought hello, there’s going to be a few blokes dropped to reserve grade here.

I was safe though because I’d just played for Australia on the 1990 Kangaroo Tour.

At least I thought I was safe.

“You got a minute Mark?”

I followed Curry into this poky room at Redfern Oval and he told me I was being dropped to reggies – for the first time in my career!

The door to that room had seen better days and as I was trying to absorb this bad news, it started to slowly creak open.

I snapped and kicked the bloody thing off the hinges!

Our halfback Craig “Tugger” Coleman was on the phone (a landline back then of course) to a journo at the time, so suddenly the whole incident was back page news!

Anyway, Curry got his point across.

After one game in reserve grade, I was promoted back into the top team and that’s where I stayed for the rest of my career.