KEY POINTS:
Two teams continually making the same mistakes, two teams continuing to lose because of that and two coaches struggling for reasons why - things are remarkably similar at the Warriors and Bulldogs right now.
The Dogs will be without Willie Mason when the pair clash at Mt Smart
Stadium on Sunday but bar that, neither team has a star player to rely on to turn things around.
Both sides have the same failings:
* They drop the ball too often.
* They give away penalties.
* They fail to mount pressure on the opposition.
* They run out of steam in tackling too much.
And as queries have been put to players and coaches on both sides this week as to what you do to fix things, it's apparent there are no major changes planned in either camp. They just need to keep doing what they're doing but with more accuracy, get the bounce of the ball their way for a change, get some cohesion and confidence flowing and momentum will swing.
Both camps declare that morale is high.
There will be more conviction in that last statement from the Warriors camp than the Dogs, who have been the subject of a run of rumours about rifts between management and players and board plans to sack coach Steve Folkes.
Folkes addressed his players yesterday to tell them it was "out of bounds" to discuss the contracts of teammates, after Mason, Mark O'Meley and Reni Maitua told Rugby League Week magazine that players were unhappy no deal had been offered to Corey Hughes and Adam Perry.
Two days prior, chief executive Malcolm Noad had said talk of unhappy players was a myth.
"I can assure you that there are a number of strong-willed senior players at the Bulldogs who are not afraid to come forward if they have any issues with management at the club. There is also a leadership group in place that can raise issues of concern with management where they feel it necessary. This has not happened."
Next day Channel Nine Australia reported that the board wanted coach Steve Folkes out. Noad described that story as "gold-plated crap" and three directors came out in support of Folkes - three are overseas.
Folkes has a 60 per cent winning record, bettered only by Craig Bellamy and Wayne Bennett, and won the grand final with the Bulldogs in 2004. It is the unfortunate nature of coaching in the professional game that he is under pressure because his side have lost four on the trot.
After they went down 24-16 to North Queensland last weekend he gave an interview that might have come from Ivan Cleary's mouth, so closely related are the problems at the two clubs.
"We've done it the last three weeks," he said of the Dogs' form. "We play well in patches and we make errors."
How do you eliminate the simple errors like dropped balls, he was asked. "I don't know, have you got any hints? We train well, our skills at training are good, our intensity is good, we're working hard but maybe we're trying too hard."
When they did score, they made hard work of it, he said. "Yeah, I guess it's a carry-on of not playing with a lot of confidence. I only know one answer and that's keep working as hard as we can and it'll turn around eventually."
Do you go back to a structured game-plan and limit the promotion of the ball? Folkes: "It's certainly not in the game plan to be throwing the ball, flick passes and all that sort of stuff. It's a confidence thing and we're just making too many errors, it's as simple as that."
Warriors coach Cleary likewise had no quick-fix. They had examined the dropped-ball problem and the mistakes were coming from different players at different times in the game - there was no pattern.
Perhaps they were trying too hard. Maybe it was just a matter of chemistry.
It was never easy to lose four in a row but the team remained tight and morale was good, Cleary said yesterday. They were playing similar football to the style that was winning for them early in the season and there was a feeling they were not far off getting things to click. "We'll keep working hard until we turn it around."
The rumblings in the background at Bulldogs HQ do not build a winning atmosphere.
Meanwhile the Warriors will get a lift this week from the news of Brent Tate's signing.
On home turf, they have the chance to swing momentum their way. Fail, and the walls start to close in on their season.
