3 games, 192 points against and 152 missed tackles: Where to now for NRL’s also-rans, aside from the spoon?

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Tim Sheens and the Wests Tigers did their due diligence in Townsville, reviewing a record 74-0 loss to the Cowboys while their plane sat on the tarmac due to industrial action.

“It’ll take more than a couple of days to digest that though,” Sheens said.

“We’ve looked at it, spat it out, and we’re looking at Cronulla.”

The danger for three of Sydney’s biggest clubs in the Tigers, Bulldogs and Dragons is that a round 18 runsheet of the most lopsided game statistics in recent memory chews them up and spits out a wooden spoon.

There really isn’t much that can be said after conceding a half-century of points when missed tackle and error counts hit similar ignominious heights.

North Queensland at least offered a ready example of how a corner can be turned by trouncing the Tigers in record fashion.

Todd Payten plastered the 66-18 scoreline from their round 12 loss at Leichhardt all over the Cowboys facilities last week because: “the posters said enough, it was there for everyone to see.”

At each of the clubs sat 15th-17th – with a combined finals drought that will stretch to 24 seasons by the end of this year – there is so much to do.

The Bulldogs have a two-point buffer on the Dragons and Tigers (who have also banked their three byes) and are three adrift of the 14th-placed Knights.

But with injuries, top-eight opponents ahead and those record losing margins in mind, one of these outfits will be finishing with the cutlery.

And that’s just the half of it.

“Number sevens are very hard to come by, and they’re very, very expensive if you want the best around,” Bulldogs boss Phil Gould said this week as he fronted the media, shielding his players from the fallout of their 66-0 capitulation and spruiking Toby Sexton’s arrival all in one.

The Dragons host Canberra on Friday night and within a week can expect another release request from their captain and marquee playmaker Ben Hunt once Origin III is run and done.

St George Illawarra captain Ben Hunt.Credit: Getty Images

St George Illawarra at least holds the trump card in that saga. Sheens would kill for a halfback of Hunt’s stature, even if he wants out of the club.

Sheens made that clear when Luke Brooks signed with Manly last week after less than unanimous enthusiasm for the Tigers retaining him, “you’d like to hope the coach gets what he wants”.

Titans pair Tino Fa’asuamaleaui and David Fifita – who are free agents thanks to contract clauses triggered by Justin Holbrook’s sacking – are on the radar of Dragons coach Shane Flanagan as he begins a significant overhaul of the club’s playing stocks.

Even with Fa’asuamaleaui’s agent Simon Mammino telling this masthead “that it would take a lot to shift him from the Titans, he’s very happy there”, and Fifita inking a reduced three-year deal in March, there’s a conversation to be had.

Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe and chairman Lee Hagipantelis look on during the 74-0 flogging in North Queensland.Credit: Getty

Especially given Hunt’s repeated links to the Gold Coast for 2024, though the Titans have room to secure him without losing either of their marquee forwards.

All three wooden spoon contenders have salary cap space to work with beyond this season, with Gould outlining $500,000 still free in Canterbury’s salary cap ahead of the August mid-year transfer deadline, and another $2 million still unspent in 2024.

But just as he was not exactly denying a bid for Brisbane star Payne Haas come November 1, Gould wasn’t exactly wrong with his next assessment.

“I think it would be a panic move [to sign another player this season] unless the right player became available. And that may happen before the deadline – clubs start to get a little bit active then – and if there’s certainly something there that can help us we’ll consider it.

“We’ve got the money to do it, and we’ve got money to spend for next year too, but there’s not a lot on the market.

“We just need to be patient to make sure we get the right players at the right time.”

As Sheens and the Tigers are painfully aware after a slew of big-money knock backs and a worryingly bare playmaking cupboard, the right time was yesterday.

In the meantime, the Bulldogs, Tigers and Dragons turn back to the task at hand.

The upside is things can’t get much worse than the combined 192-16 scoreline, Canterbury’s 63 missed tackles or the Tigers’ 16 errors.

The danger is, despite on-field form lines of varying promise in the last six weeks, the NRL’s stragglers actually do find a way to sink even further.

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