Dolphins head coach Wayne Bennett has taken his opportunity to have a crack at pre-season predictions over the Dolphins ending up at the bottom of the table.
Fresh off a 26 points to 12 win over the St George Illawarra Dragons in front of a sold out crowd in Redcliffe on Thursday evening, the expansion club now have seven wins from 12 efforts.
The victory, which came without their high-performing Origin players in Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and Tom Gilbert, saw the Dolphins under the pump early before skipping away with a clinical win, controlling the game on the back of their completion rate.
It was a performance typical of a Wayne Bennett-coached team, but while Bennett said he was not surprised with where his side sat on the ladder, he did warn against his team "patting each other on the back."
"No," Bennett said when asked if he was surprised where the Dolphins were on the ladder.
"I didn't expect what I read we were going to be, but anyway, we are only halfway through. Don't run around patting ourselves on the back or we will go to sleep."
Bennett praised his side for their adaptability, with injuries being a regular feature of the Dolphins' side throughout the first half of the 2023 campaign when asked about Kodi Nikorima.
"Kodi was good at fullback. We are a very adaptable team. We have had to be. We have had injuries virtually every week we played. Maybe the first week we played we had our best team on the park that we could get, but since then we have had injuries, Origin players missing, that sort of stuff. To the team's credit they have found a way," Bennett said.
Bennett also heaped praise on winger Jamayne Isaako in his 100th game and said he "liked" the game of Anthony Milford who was recalled to the starting side.
The win has the Dolphins sitting in sixth place on the table, but, prior to byes and other games this weekend, equal on points with the ladder-leading Penrith Panthers.
