The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs' attack caused nothing but pain for all involved with the club last year.

And all off-season the Bulldogs playing group have been at pains to stress a "more expansive brand of footy" is coming in 2018, as Moses Mbye put it two weeks ago.

The NRL low of 360 points at 15 a game last year despite Canterbury making the second most offloads (12.6 per game) in 2017, as well as the fourth fewest errors (9.9 per game).

The thing is though, they also moved the ball around plenty too, more than any other team in fact.

When it came to long shifts – as in passes that covered 30 per cent or more of the field – the Dogs' 27.1 a game was well ahead of the next most prolific, North Queensland at a tick over 24 each game.

With 414 short side raids for the season, second most in the NRL, as well as all those offloads and long shifts, the Bulldogs by definition were playing expansive footy in 2017.

It just didn't work. Which suggests execution as much as playing style is where the blue and whites need to pull their socks up.