It might have been scrappy but the Dolphins pulled off the club’s seventh win of the season, but coach Wayne Bennett wasn’t really in the mood to talk about it.
The 26-12 win over the St George Illawarra Dragons moves the newest NRL franchise to 16 competition points and sixth place before other fixtures take place in round 13.
While some fans are stoked by the 17th team’s performance midway through the season, especially with the dire predictions leading into the year, coach Bennett wasn’t about to get sentimental.
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Asked if he wanted to comment on how the first half of the Dolphins’ first season was going, Bennett said: « Not really » with a wry smile.
When the journalist continued on the line of the questioning, Bennett responded: « Push as much as you like. »
While he was a tough nut to crack initially, the master coach gave an insight into how he feels about his team’s first year in the NRL.
« I didn’t expect what I read where we were going to be (before the season), » Bennett said.
« Halfway, we don’t want to be running around patting ourselves on the back, we’ll go to sleep. »
Playing his 100th game, Jamayne Isaako scored two tries and 18 points sending the Dragons to last place, with Wests Tigers’ bye moving them to 10 points.
Dragons skipper Jack de Belin was sin binned for a cannonball tackle and will be sweating on the match review committee’s decision on Friday morning.
Dragons coach Ryan Carr expressed some frustration at how the decision was made.
« I want to have a look at some other things in the game that I’m really interested to see some contacts made to see if it could of been a similar outcome (to the sin bin) on the other side, » he said.
Carr was further pressed on whether he thought the officiating was inconsistent and agreed.
« Not from first look but again I don’t want to make too many outlandish comments, they (Dolphins) played a good game of footy, I don’t want to make too many excuses for it, » he said.
« But at the end of the day I’ve got to look after the players and going through it, there seemed to be a lot of penalties early and all of a sudden the whistle went away late so I don’t understand why. »
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