Woolf: ‘That says to me we’re going to turn it around’

Dolphins NRL Head Coach Kristian Woolf says the way his players have handled a tough first four rounds gives him confidence they will turn their season around sooner rather than later.

Woolf faced the media after this morning’s Captain’s Run training session, which had a focus on attack.

The squad appeared to be in good spirits and focused on fine-tuning combinations and attack plans.

“We’re looking good. We’ve had another good week of preparation. That’s something that’s been a bit positive for us,” Woolf said.

The Dolphins are winless, after four rounds, and face the Titans at the Gold Coast tomorrow (round five, 4.30pm kick off).

“We know that we just need to keep improving, keep wanting to compete and that’s something I’ve really likes from our blokes … they’ve turned up on a Monday with an honesty, turned up on a Monday with a smile and there hasn’t been a game yet where we haven’t really been competing right until the end,” he explained.

“That says to me we’re going to turn it around and we’re going to turn it around sooner rather than later.

“We had a little bit of disruption around the start of the year and it’s an easy thing to lose – that attention to detail and that little bit of confidence in the things that you’re doing.

“We’re building that back up. (If) we get the attention to detail right, we’re going to stop finding ourselves in challenging positions as often as we are.”

Woolf said the focus this week had been on every member of the squad ‘owning their roles’.

“If you look at us, defensively, last week we did a really good job for long periods but when we have our lapses, they tend to hurt us. It’s a little bit the same with the ball,” he said.

“There’s no doubt we made too many errors last week. We almost doubled their errors and a lot of those were in the back field, which just puts you under too much pressure.

“There’s a couple of little clean-ups there for us, but they’re easy clean-ups as well.”

He said the plan the squad developed during the preseason was still one he believed would work for them.

“Nothing’s changed there. We can’t just look at the results and think that means we throw everything out the window. We had a plan. I think it’s a good plan … we (need to) stick to that and we (need to) execute that,” Woolf said.

“Once we start executing that, we can really build some confidence off the back of that.”

Confidence is something the Titans have in spades after a strong start to the season and coming off a 30-12 win over the Roosters in round four.

“I see a team that’s playing with some confidence and when you’re playing with confidence, you tend to defend well and you tend to have some confidence with what you do with the ball as well,” Woolf said.

He conceded confidence had taken a hit at the Dolphins, but said heads were still up.

“When you don’t win games, obviously that is the biggest challenge is playing with some confidence and really backing yourself,” Woolf said.

“I think the whole team’s just a little bit down in that area at the moment. What we need to do is we need to own our own roles. If we do that well, we’re going to build confidence off the back of that and we’ll get everyone into the game including Hammer.

“I thought he showed some real signs of that (spark) last week. He showed a lot more signs around him moving around the ball and sniffing around the ball for opportunities … they’re going to come up. He looked dangerous there at times.

“It’s up to us as a team to find him more opportunities and that’s something we’ve been working hard at doing.”

The Dolphins V Titans game is at Cbus Super Stadium, Gold Coast, at 4.30pm. Tickets are still on sale and Dolphins’ fans are being urged to come out in force. Visit the website