Canterbury Bulldogs' director of football Phil Gould has confirmed the club's two pre-season trial opponents ahead of the 2022 season kicking off.
In a revamped pre-season, the NRL are reportedly preparing to have all games broadcast, meaning games will be played all the way from Thursday to Monday in both pre-season weeks.
According to a Tweet from Gould, the two pre-season games for the men from Belmore will both be played on Monday nights, with the Newcastle Knights and Cronulla Sharks slated as their opponents.
@NRL_Bulldogs will play Newcastle Knights on Monday Feb 21st. Venue TBA. Bulldogs will play Cronulla Sharks the following Monday night at Shark Park. Bulldogs first premiership match is against Cowboys in Townsville Sunday March 13th at 6pm. https://t.co/8cFy4zTQwj
— Phil Gould (@PhilGould15) December 5, 2021
The Bulldogs have made plenty of high-profile signings for the 2022 season, and the two matches will be the first chance to see how the new-look team under Trent Barrett have gelled during the summer.
Canterbury's players are now all at pre-season, and with ten new signings for the season - many of whom will slot straight into the first-grade side - it's going to be one of the most closely monitored pre-season efforts.
The Bulldogs are expected for big things in 2022 after a disastrous run where the club have had an imbalanced salary cap and landed up at the wrong end of the table more than they haven't.
However, Gould's arrival, alongside the likes of Matt Dufty, Josh Addo-Carr, Brent Naden, Braidon Burns, Matt Burton, Paul Vaughan and Tevita Pangai Junior has fans excited by what might be to come in 2022.
Matches against the Knights and Sharks are likely to give a solid idea of where the club are at too, with the Knights finishing in the top eight the last two years, and the Sharks having added big names Nicho Hynes, Cameron McInnes and Dale Finucane to their squad.
The Knights will begin life without Mitchell Pearce in their pre-season fixtures, while the Sharks will look to put the first building blocks in place for a return to the top eight.
