The sight of Aaron Donnelly running on to the field for the Bulldogs’ round-five home win over Boggabri was surprising. But the end result was the same: another influential performance at centre from a born-and-bred Gunnedah boy who has hit the pause button on his bid for a new life elsewhere.
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The Bulldogs veteran, 26, was not supposed to play for the club this year. He had relocated to Newcastle following the conclusion of the 2017 season, but could not find a “decent job”.
Before returning to Gunnedah, he played three reserve-grade games for the Macquarie Scorpions.
“I just needed a bit of a change and moved down there,” the bachelor said, adding: “Yes, I’m here until the end of the year, hopefully, and I’ll assess everything at the end of the year and see what happens.”
Third-placed Gunnedah are in the midst of an unusual mid-season break that ends when they travel to Narrabri on June 30 – four weeks after their last match. That was a 38-16 away loss to the Roosters on June 2.
Since then, they have been sidelined by the June long weekend and a bye. There are no games this weekend because of Origin II at ANZ Stadium in Sydney.
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When Gunnedah finally returns, it will be week one of the second half of the season. After the Kootingal-Moonbi loss, veteran Roosters prop Phil Beaton warned that the Bulldogs, downed 42-16 by the Bears at Jack Woolaston Oval in round four, would likely be a better side the longer the season progressed.
Donnelly agrees. “It’s only early in the season. You're bound to lose a couple of games early,” he said.
“I never played the Norths game, so I don’t really know how they went there. But I heard Norths just started strong and went away with it.
“But against Kooty, we just didn’t touch the ball for 25 minutes in the first half. And it’s pretty hard to win a game [given that].”
Donnelly insisted that the Bulldogs were not “upset” by those losses.
He said: “You sort of don’t win comps that early in the year. Hopefully we can put together some performances towards the back end [of the season].”