Canterbury produced their best defensive effort in four years on Monday to release the mounting pressure building at Belmore and ease the strain on under-fire coach Des Hasler.
The Bulldogs downed St George Illawarra 16-2, holding an opponent tryless for the first time since 2013 and breathing life into an ailing season that reached its low point last round in a 38-0 capitulation against Penrith.
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Bulldogs claim crucial win over Dragons
The Bulldogs have snapped their four-game losing streak with a crucial 16-2 win over the Dragons.
Hasler's side hadn't won in six weeks before the Queen's Birthday clash at ANZ Stadium in front of 24,083 fans, and the coach took the unorthodox step of taking his side on a bonding session during the week to clear his players' heads.
It served to completely revamp the Bulldogs' defensive attitude, and left the club just two points outside of the top eight with a bye to look forward to this week.
"I never really ever doubted the ability of this team, plenty have," Hasler said.
"They were disappointed with how we played last week against Penrith. I just think we were a bit tidier in all facets.
"It seems you're not really interested in that part of the game, it seems you're more interested in the distractions that go on around it.
"There's still some improvement against a very good St George side, they're a good team St George."
The Dragons led 2-0 at the break after an absorbing first half, before Josh Morris scored his side's first try – Canterbury's first four pointer in 187 minutes of football.
That opened the floodgates somewhat, and was followed by Michael Lichaa's dummy-half finish before Marcelo Montoya iced the cake late on.
Captain James Graham, who returned this week from a minor neck injury, said the performance was much closer to the club's internal expectations.
"A lot's been hyped up in the press, to tell you the truth. We tried to remain calm, obviously you don't need to be Freud to work out that we weren't happy with how last week went," Graham said.
"From an external point of view, I think most of the pundits would've had us outside the eight anyway, so I don't know why they're complaining about where we are and stuff. It's exactly where most people tipped us to be.
"Internally we know we're better than that and we showed signs of that today.
"No one was more annoyed... than the playing group and the staff members as well. We know people are going to write about it but we just didn't need reminding I guess."
Graham said a double try-saving defensive play late in the first half, where Dragons winger Nene Macdonald and then Origin star Josh Dugan, were thwarted epitomised his side's effort.
"That was great to watch, it showed me that our boys care about what we're trying to do," Graham said.
"We were just trying to replicate that same energy going into the second half. A couple of weeks ago against Cronulla and the Roosters we found ourselves in positions probably to win the game but haven't come home with it and I think we've learned some lessons from that."
The Dragons remain in the top four ahead of a clash with Parramatta who will also be smarting after being belted by North Queensland over the weekend.
Coach Paul McGregor said his side was forced into too much defensive work against Canterbury.
"I'm not too disheartened about the loss, there's certainly a few things we need to be better at, I just didn't think we rewarded ourselves with anything. It's not good enough," McGregor said.
"We're leading the competition in all forms of attack before today – we were leading line breaks, tries, try assists, offloads.
"Today they defended really well. You've got to give credit where it's due, the opportunity we did have down there they defended OK.
"We didn't give ourselves enough opportunity down there.
"We made 100 more tackles than the opposition. That's a lot of D, so it takes a bit out of you when you do get the ball, you're just a step away from everything."
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