Canterbury teammates have issued a call to arms to the departing Reed Mahoney, declaring "we need him" as the Bulldogs fight to revive their flagging NRL title hopes.
Presenting a united front, the Bulldogs are, once again, playing down any talk of dissension in the ranks ahead of Friday's first-week finals stoush with the Storm in Melbourne.
After a blazing 10-from-11 start to lead the competition, Canterbury have limped into the playoffs with just two wins from their past six starts.
Perhaps most tellingly, the Dogs' only victories since relegating Mahoney to the bench in round 23 have come against the fading Warriors and a Penrith side resting 16 players two weeks ago.
Veteran enforcer Viliame Kikau, a dual premiership winner with Penrith before joining Canterbury two years ago, is backing Mahoney to deliver come finals crunch time for the Bulldogs, and says the club needs him.
Kikau insists North Queensland-bound Mahoney's attitude has been spot on despite having to make way for the side's spine shake-up.
"He's been good," Kikau told AAP.
"Obviously that happens to every club, every player.
"The stuff that has happened to him this year, we couldn't control it. It's out of our control.
"But he's coming in here to training, he hasn't kicked stones.
"He's come here and prepared well and he's helped the boys, the younger boys prepare well as well, so that's credit to him.
"We definitely need him in these last few games. A hundred per cent he'll definitely have a point to prove and that's going to be a big positive for us.
"We're hoping that he plays well."
Former Bulldogs star Josh Morris insists niggling hooker Mahoney should return to the run-on side for the Bulldogs to arrest their alarming form slide.
"Get him in there and get him in the start of the game. Let him take the sting out of it," Morris said in 2GB radio commentary during Canterbury's last-round loss to Cronulla on Saturday night.
"If you want the best Dogs side out there at finals time, Reed Mahoney needs to be starting in it."
Halfback Toby Sexton, another who is leaving the club next season, has also lost his place in the starting side since coach Cameron Ciraldo signed Wests Tigers want-away youngster Lachlan Galvin in late May.
Talk of unrest at Belmore persists among Bulldogs fans but fullback Connor Tracey and Galvin's new halves partner Matt Burton on Monday swatted away suggestions Canterbury had lost their way since the team's mid-season upheaval.
Despite recent results going against them, a defiant Burton said Galvin's integration into the team, at the expense of the cohesion seemingly lost since Sexton and Mahoney were dumped, was "not really at all" to blame for Canterbury's slide.
"Whoever slots in there is going to do the job for the team and, yeah, whoever fits in, that's their role to play and, yeah, it's been great," Burton said, somewhat unconvincingly.
Maintaining "it's on all the players" to help reignite Canterbury's campaign, Kikau subscribes to the theory that finals football is a whole new competition - and opportunity - for the Bulldogs as they chase a first preliminary final in more than a decade.
"It doesn't matter where you sit on the ladder," he said.
"Every team is going to be ready to take down any team and we're going to prepare really well to go in against Melbourne this week."
