Bulldogs face off season of soul searching

Sep 11, 2016 - 7:00 PM Coach Des Hasler will spend the off season overhauling Canterbury's playing style after their exit from the NRL finals at the hands of Penrith.

The Bulldogs suffered their fourth straight loss, 28-12 to the Panthers in Sunday's elimination final at Allianz Stadium.

Canterbury were again left lame due to a misfiring attack that has been the subject of much criticism over the last month of their season.

Canberra winger Brenko Lee is so far the Dogs' only 2017 signing of note, while they will lose Sam Perrett to retirement, Curtis Rona to rugby union and Tim Browne to Penrith. Tony Williams has also been let go.

The Dogs were a top four hope a month ago but a series of underwhelming performances sunk their season, culminating in the loss to the Panthers.

"It was very disappointing, we were inconsistent all year," Hasler said.

"We will have the whole off season to think about it."

Skipper James Graham was just as forthright.

"I am bitterly disappointed," he said.

"It is hard to say what went wrong this year, emotions are high at the moment.

"It has been a rollercoaster."

Perrett said he thought Hasler would move to make significant changes ahead of 2017.

"Des always has the wheels spinning, "he said.

"I'm sure he will be spending a lot of time in the off season on how we can do things differently and better next year.

"Working out how we can do better, because there are a lot of shattered boys here."

Josh Morris said the Dogs struggled to find their groove all year.

"We were just inconsistent I guess," he said.

"We started off the season going win, loss, win, loss, win, loss and then had a pretty solid Origin period and then the back end of the season wasn't the best.

"I thought the first half (against Penrith) we played well but in the second half the inconsistency crept back in and cost us".

Source: AAP