Canterbury halfback Moses Mbye has credited their current six-game winning streak to the first half hammering they copped in their last clash against the Sydney Roosters in round 21.
The Bulldogs square off against the Tricolours in Friday night’s semi-final with the victor moving on to tackle Brisbane for a place in this year’s grand final.
Des Hasler’s side were stunned 22-0 inside the opening 30 minutes before staging a second half comeback that fell just short.
Last year’s grand finalists have yet to be defeated since and are now the hottest team in the finals after the Roosters’ 12-game winning run was snapped in last week’s qualifying final loss to Melbourne.
And Mbye said it all began from that ill-fated game at Allianz Stadium.
“We lost that game, but it was one of our better performances this year,” he said on Wednesday.
“We obviously started slow and they got out to a bit of a lead, but we clawed our way back into the game.
“We’ve spoken about that game and Des was quite happy with that performance. We’ll need to put together something like that (this week), but from the kickoff.”
While the Bulldogs haven’t tasted defeat in a month and a half, some of their wins have hardly been convincing, including last week’s golden-point thriller against an unfancied St George-Illawarra side.
But prop David Klemmer said their ability to stay in the hunt against the Roosters six weeks ago has helped them win matches despite being below their best.
Asked what prompted the comeback, he said: “We were pretty shocked. We said, `We don’t want this to get nasty at all.’
“But we kept turning up, we kept digging away for a couple minutes there. We got a couple of penalties and then we scored some points and it gave us a little boost.
“After that we’ve come on a bit of a run. But there was a lot we took out of that game, how we stuck in there and we have to stay with them,” he said.
History remains against the Bulldogs, however, losing five of their past six matches against current Roosters coach Trent Robinson.
