It seems Phil Gould isn’t entirely sure what to make of Kristian Woolf and the Dolphins in 2025.
Speaking on the Six Tackles with Gus podcast, the Bulldogs boss and premiership winning coach has expressed equal doses of admiration and frustration when asked about the Redcliffe-based club’s 50-28 win over the Rabbitohs last Saturday night.
“If you’re good enough to score 50, then you’re good enough to stop your opposition scoring as much as that,” Gould remarked.
“If your dominance is so much, physically and skill wise, you should be applying that in defence as well.”
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“While it’s certainly entertaining to watch, if I was coaching I’d be devastated—I thought there were some really poor moments in defence in that game,” Gould continued.
“I don’t think I could sit through that and believe that’s what a football team should look like.”
For all his frustration, however, Gould repeated on more than one occasion the Dolphins are a ‘serious football team’ having now scored 50 points in three of their last four NRL games.
But again he offered a word of caution.
“Sometimes that (attack) can erode away at your resilience in defence, because you have such an ability to score points comfortably,” he said.
“I’ve seen them (the Dolphins) apply themselves in defence, they just chose not to do it the other night, simply because they felt they could score as many as they wanted, whenever they wanted.”
“The Dolphins are a serious football team and I’d suggest they scare everyone else in the competition,” he said.
“You can defend well, but there are some things they do you can’t defend against.
“They’ve got enough points in them to beat anyone.”
The Dolphins currently sit eighth on the NRL ladder and are one of seven clubs to have a bye in Round 18.
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