Cameron Ciraldo has urged his Canterbury players to take a fearless approach against Melbourne and make better use of their edges, after the Bulldogs' best strike weapons were subdued in round one.
Canterbury's off-season of great hype was handed a reality check in last week's loss to Manly, with Ciraldo labelling the 31-6 defeat unacceptable and the team's attack as clunky.
Most notable was the minor impact of Viliame Kikau, who was limited to 71 metres by Manly as the hulking second-rower failed to bust a tackle on the left edge.
The 116kg recruit from Penrith was rarely given the ball in good areas or with momentum out of the middle, with the Bulldogs missing several of their front-rowers to injury.
Ciraldo has this week told the Bulldogs to get back to their style at AAMI Park on Saturday and allow their edges to make more of an impact.
"We're not going to die wondering. We're going to go down there and play our style of footy," Ciraldo said.
"We have good players on the edges and we want them to get the ball in their hands.
"But we can only do that if we ... put some pressure on the opposition with some good ball sets.
"We just want to play the way we want to play, the way we played at times in the trials and the way at times we played last week."
The rookie coach is well aware the Bulldogs need more ball if they are to impose their style, having completed at 68 per cent against Manly with several errors coming early in the set.
"We didn't build any pressure last week," Ciraldo said.
"We killed ourselves at times. But when we did have a chance we didn't take those chances.
"We're going down with a different mindset this week."
Ciraldo also admitted he was miffed by an NRL decision to include a portion of Josh Jackson's wage on this year's salary cap after he retired last October.
Jackson remains with the club in a high-performance role, with the Bulldogs' general manager Phil Gould this week branding the rule "stupid".
"Josh retired of his own accord. I find it hard to see how that works," Ciraldo said.
"It's above my pay grade, so I leave that to people above me."
