Woolf: ‘I want to see us play with a lot more energy’

Dolphins NRL Head Coach Kristain Woolf says fans can expect to see an improved side when they take on the Tigers at their sold-out spiritual home in heritage jerseys tomorrow afternoon.

The Dolphins will honour their historic 1965 premiership victory by wearing a special edition jersey for the clash at Redcliffe’s Kayo Stadium from 4.30pm.

The round-three game follows two losses and a disrupted start to the season due to Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

The Dolphins suffered a narrow (16-14) loss to South Sydney in round one, which was hastily moved to Sydney as the cyclone closed in, but appeared lethargic in attack and defence during their round-two (26-12) loss to Newcastle.

“We’ve just got to worry about a really good performance (this week). If you look at our two performances so far, I was relatively happy with what we did against Souths … we did a lot of good things and put ourselves in an opportunity to earn a win and just couldn’t quite finish it at the end of the game,” Woolf said.

“We certainly didn’t have the same number of positives out of Newcastle but again there were a lot of things going on. I’m looking for a more positive performance this week. If we keep improving, then we’re going to start getting wins.

“I want to see us play with a lot more energy than we did last week. I think off the back of everything that did go on, we did lack a little bit of energy and we certainly lacked a little bit of discipline.

“We found ourselves 20 points down after 20-odd minutes and a lot of the damage had been done.”

Woolf was, however, buoyed by the fact his side did not give up and stopped the scoreboard deficit blowing out.

“I thought we showed a lot of fight and I thought we showed a lot of the preseason work that we’d done to not allow that to happen on the weekend,” he said.

He has made a couple of changes to his team for round three, with Jack Bostock returning to the wing and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki to replace Josh Kerr on the interchange bench.

“He (Bostock) has had a good week. He’s fit and healthy and he’s a good inclusion for us … just brings a real energy, he’s always talking, he’s talking in a really positive way, he had a great year last year, so he deserves that opportunity to come back in,” Woolf explains.

Finefeuiaki is returning from concussion protocols, after a head knock in round one.

“It’s great to have him back. He showed some glimpses of what he’s capable of and what he’s going to bring to us in round one. When we had to replace him, he was a bit of a miss for us as the game went on actually,” Woolf said.

“He’s a handful the way he carries … he’s getting better defensively all the time. He’s a good inclusion.”

Woolf is wary of the Tigers’ reinvigorated spine, with the addition of Jerome Luai, and concedes the Dolphins have not had too many minutes to get theirs firing, with Kodi Nikorima unavailable for round one.

“It’s a great challenge for us this week. Last week was the first time we got to put that group together. If you go through the trials, they played 40 minutes together,” Woolf explains.

“I think we’ll show a lot of improvement this week. We’ve had a really good week of preparation. The more time we spend together with that 9, 6, 7, 1 (the better) … they weren’t the only guys off last week. We had a bit of an off performance … there were a lot of things going on that could impact that.”

Flegler’s return?

There has been plenty of talk this week about when Tom Flegler is likely to return to the playing field after he revealed he’s starting to regain some feeling and strength during a podcast interview.

Woolf said there were markers Flegler had to reach, in his recovery, before he could play again.

“The first one of those (assessments) has been positive. He’s got a long way to go and a lot of improving to do, certainly before he’s thinking about playing. The most important thing is the first step was positive,” Woolf said.

“In the next month, I think we get another one of those markers where they’ll test that in some other way to see how much of that reactivation has happened. If that continues to be positive, then we can obviously get a little more positive or a little bit more excited in terms of what happens from there.

“It’s a long way to go but the most important thing is that we are getting those positive signals and all indications are that we’re certainly hopeful as well as confident that we can get him back on the field but exactly when that is, we still don’t know.”

Interest in Francis Molo

There has also been speculation this week that Dragons prop Francis Molo is heading to the Dolphins if he can secure a release from the St George Illawarra.

“We’ve made our interest known. There’s no dramas there but at the end of the day he’s got to sort out what’s going on with St George first. Until he gets a release, that can’t go any further. At the moment, that’s where it sits,” Woolf said.

He said once a release had been secured, the parties could determine what that would look like for the Dolphins – contract length and other terms.

“I’ve dealt with Frank before. I’ve followed his career for a long time. I know he’s a good person. I know he’s great around the group. I like the way he carries the footy and I like his aggression,” Woolf said when asked why he wants to bring him to the Dolphins.

“He’s got a lot of things I think can help any footy team. All we’ve done is express interest and he’s got to sort out what’s happening with St George and then we figure out what happens from there.”