Two and zero, but should the Bulldogs have scored more points?

The Canterbury Bulldogs have made, on paper, an excellent start to the 2026 NRL season.

The margins aren't enormous, but in the early weeks of any season, it's about getting two competition points, not necessarily how you got them.

For that, the Bulldogs deserve a round of applause, a tick of approval, and the “everything is going to plan” line being trotted out.

Because, results-wise, it is.

The actual games themselves are a slightly different story, though, and the nagging doubt around the Bulldogs right now is “should they have scored more points?”

There are plenty of factors and arguments you could raise in defence of the fact that their margins have been so small.

Round 1 was in Las Vegas. That's a narrower field of play, the Dragons defended like their lives depended on it (and backed that showing up for another 60 minutes against the Storm in Round 2), and the travel could have messed with the blue and white.

Round 2 was in Canberra, against last year's minor premiers, and in what has been described by Zero Tackle writer Michael Jeffrey as “the worst conditions I have ever experienced as a fan.”

That, without doubt, makes the ability to score points, play expansive footy, and run on any sort of lead a tricky task.

So there are excuses, and there is the fact that it's only the opening games of the season, separated by an enormous break around the bye, which won't have helped anyone if the goal was to not be clunky.

But the nagging doubt remains for the blue and white.

The issue is that they have had so much ball, so much territory, won both penalty counts by a significant margin, and led both games when it came to running metres and not having to do quite as much work in defence.

The stats are pretty clear as to just how dominant the Bulldogs have been on paper.

The issue, really, is that the stats aren't backed up by the scoreboard.

In Las Vegas, they needed a controversial referee ruling to get the better of the Dragons in the 90th minute after many other questionable calls throughout the game. In Canberra, it again felt at times as if things just went their way off the whistle of Adam Gee.

They ended up winning by just four points.

Ask some, and they'll tell you the Bulldogs have had everything go their way from the referees over the opening two rounds.

Maybe we won't go that far, but you'd be burying your head in the sand to suggest they haven't had the rub of the green over the opening two weeks.

But still, this isn't being designed to talk about referees or decision-making. The opportunities to do that over the opening fortnight of the season have been plentiful.

Nor is it designed to talk about the penalty count. The old rhetoric that somehow penalty counts have to be even, or the referee hasn't done his job, is just bonkers.

The Bulldogs have dominated possession, dominated territory, dominated the pace of the game and completed well. That, whether you like it or not, is going to win penalties.

This is an opportunity instead to talk about that same old question that has hung around the Bulldogs ever since they made the stunning mid-season decision in 2025 to axe Toby Sexton and demote Reed Mahoney following the signing of Lachlan Galvin from the Wests Tigers.

The issue is, despite all the stats, the Bulldogs have only scored four tries in 160 minutes.

Looking back to last year, it's fairly clear there are major differences that need to be addressed.

In 2025, the Bulldogs managed to get through eight games around injuries with their original first-choice spine, that being Matt Burton at five-eighth, Toby Sexton at halfback and Reed Mahoney at hooker.

They scored 37 tries in those 8 games at 4.6 per game.

Moreover, they led the competition halfway through the season, and things were looking pretty good for the blue and white as they surged towards the top four for the first time in many, many years.

The changes that were rung mid-season saw the new-look spine of Burton, Lachlan Galvin at number seven, and Bailey Hayward at dummy half score 26 tries in 7 games at 3.7 per game.

It's not a disaster, but the drop off is enough that it's certainly noticeable.

The try-scoring record in 2026 will change, and at some point, Lachlan Galvin will improve as a halfback.

This stuff takes time, and no one is sitting here doubting the enormous talent and potential Galvin possesses, even if some would argue it's not going to come in the number seven jumper.

Right now, the Bulldogs don't have a choice but to play him there. That was ultimately the decision they made when he was signed from the Wests Tigers in the middle of 2025.

At the time, it smacked of a signing that the Bulldogs made simply because they could, rather than it fitting into their plans, and the opening two weeks of the new season have done little to change that view.

The game against Canberra certainly is not going to be the greatest example of attack, but Galvin's main play was a short ball to star second-rower Jacob Preston, who must be in the mix for a State of Origin jumper come that point of the season.

Over and over and over and over again, it was the same play repeated by the blue and white.

Preston looked a threat more often than he didn't, and did crash over for a critical try in the 70th minute, but the green machine had the play scouted from the early minutes of the contest fairly well.

And don't get me wrong, the short ball to Jacob Preston, as with any of the game's top second-rowers, is a lethal move, but at times, it was as if the young halfback had forgotten Marcelo Montoya and Enari Tuala existed on the outside.

Numbers were there more than once, too, but ignored.

Galvin also left most of the kicking to Matt Burton, who had a strong game, during the contest against Canberra.

Burton kicked for 824 metres with a number of his trademark million mile in the air bombs, while Galvin had just 131 metres off the boot.

He did, in those six kicks, force two dropouts, which is a superb return and speaks to his enormous talent and potential, but the lack of involvement as a halfback in that side of the game will be one to monitor over the coming weeks.

There are always going to be teething problems with a new-look spine, but with so much ball, so much territory and so much going right, they should have more than a try every 42 and a half minutes to start their season.

That is the bottom line.

Maybe the biggest positive out of the opening two rounds has been the defence of the boys in blue and white.

With Mahoney gone and the jury out on Hayward's defence at hooker, there were very understandable questions regarding that leading into the season as well.

To only score the points they have but win both games is an outstanding achievement to start the season.

But they are going to need to find something else in attack if they want to be premiership contenders in 2026.

What they are dishing up at the moment won't get it done.