Sexton parachuted into Belmore to help salvage Bulldogs’ season
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The Bulldogs’ 66-point humiliation on Sunday was a long time coming, according to Canterbury’s general manager of football Phil Gould, but the embattled club is hoping the mid-season arrival of Titans half Toby Sexton will help salvage their season.
“Toby will be a great addition to the club – he was in the junior program here at one stage when he was younger. He’s debuted at the Gold Coast Titans, [but] probably got his pathway blocked a little bit up there at the moment,” Gould said.
“We were looking for a number seven, and a game manager, so he gets his opportunity down here. We’re looking forward to him coming down.”
The Bulldogs have struggled to find a successful halves combination all year, with Kyle Flanagan, Josh Reynolds and youngsters Karl Oloapua and Khaled Rajab all getting chances alongside key playmaker Matt Burton.
Sexton is signed to Canterbury for the remainder of the 2023 season and 2024, but Gould said the club’s long-term solution to their halfback problem would take some years to solve.
“Number sevens are very hard to come by, and they’re very, very expensive if you want the best around,” Gould said.
The Bulldogs have signed former Titans halfback Toby Sexton for two years.Credit: Chris Hyde/Getty Images
“I think we’re going to have to develop our own. We’ve got some young kids in the system that we’re really happy with, but they’re some years away yet, and we need to build the right culture and the right development program here.”
Canterbury still has about $500,000 free in its salary cap this year, and about $2 million in 2024 should they decide to chase another key player, but Gould said the club wanted to avoid making any rash decisions.
“We still haven’t made that decision [to sign someone else this year]. We have got some players that are due back from injury shortly,” he said.
“I think Villiame Kikau is only a few weeks away now and Luke Thompson is kind of a couple of weeks away but is [also] kind of indefinite as well.
“I think that would a knee-jerk reaction [to sign another player]. I think it would be a panic move 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.”
The Bulldogs have won just five of their 16 games this year, and the next few weeks they face South Sydney, Brisbane and Penrith, but Gould said the club was willing to take the long road.
“This year was always going to be a difficult year, and we have just got to keep sticking to our task of rebuilding the club over a period of time,” he said.
“It’s going to take time, we know that, we’ve been through this process plenty of time before, and we just have to trust that.”
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