For most of the season a lot of people in the media have been talking up the Dogs as "frontrunners" and premiership material while ignoring the Dragons.
In some ways it's a little weird because the Dogs have been second or third on the ladder for the last two months. How can you be the "frontrunners" when there's one or two teams ahead of you?
Read more Try Hard blogs But overall, I understand why the media have been hitching their wagon to the Bulldogs' star. The media loves a good fairytale and a dogs premiership offers two. Dogs legend and scandal-free Hazem el Masri is retiring at the end of the season and it'd make a great story for him to go out with a win.
Then there's the bigger fairytale of a team going from wooden spooners in 2008 to premiers in 2009. It's a feat that's only been achieved once before and sports journos are licking their lips in anticipation of it happening again.
But I wonder if the Dogs love-in will be tempered following their damn ordinary performance against the Eels last weekend.
Make no mistake, this was a very bad loss for a side running in second spot. Some games you're just a little down on intensity and you come up against a side that is red-hot for a night but you still manage to keep the scoreline tight, maybe losing by a penalty goal or a try.
Other times, the footy Gods conspire against you and you drop plenty of ball and nothing really goes your way. Despite your best efforts you lose by maybe less than 10 points.
But that's not what happened to the Dogs in their 27-8 loss against the Eels. It wasn't a fumble-athon, the time in possession was roughly equal - the Dogs actually had a few more sets with the ball than the Eels - and Canterbury spent plenty of time inside the Parra 20m zone.
They had enough ball and field possession to win the game but, instead lost it - by nearly 20 points. They were comprehensively outplayed by a team more than 10 places below them on the ladder. And this from the team everyone is talking about as the premiers?
That game was second playing 13th and, if you asked a non-footy fan to pick who was who, there's no way they'd have thought the Dogs were the second-placed side.
If you're truly premiership material you can still lose to a much lower-ranked side. But not by nearly 20 points. That's not an off night, that's a humiliation. There's really no way you can excuse such a big loss as an aberration, as a one-off. Top-ranked teams simply don't lose by that much.
By comparison, the Dragons' biggest losing margin is just six points. In fact, the Dogs' 19-point loss is the biggest losing margin of any team in the top four.
No doubt their upcoming rivals will be watching the video of this game to see just how to beat the Dogs.
Makes you wonder how many more games the Dogs will drop heading into the finals. And on Saturday night's efforts, they will definitely drop some.
Which will surely make everyone look for another fairytale premier.
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