Phil Gould

The big dogs.

The big dogs six or seven weeks in a row.

That's after not having had a break for some time, coming out of Origin where we had bigger representation than we probably thought we would have.

Kurt Mann played Origin.

Max King played Origin.

Carraz and Preston were in Origin camps and away and all that.

So it was a disruptive period during that period.

We hadn't experienced that before.

But I thought we rallied really well.

We got down to the back of the year.

We had a big win over the Warriors.

Roosters beat us over here.

Then we went and played Melbourne in Melbourne and we were understrength and we should have won the game.

We should have.

I think Crittinelli scores on the bill there to level up and we were coming home the better.

The following week we played Penrith and they decided to rest their players.

Now we actually toyed with doing the same idea because we hadn't had a buy for ages and we thought, but if we won that game, it got us into the top four.

It confirmed the top four, which then we thought, well, if we did that and we were able to win week one of the finals, then we do get a fortnight off.

So we sat and considered it.

And then there was never any chance of us resting players in the last round, even though we played Sharks and that game meant little to our position on the ladder.