Pay pleased with effort but effort can only get you so far

Canterbury coach Dean Pay couldn't fault the team's effort against Melbourne on Sunday afternoon but conceded more creativity is required in the second half of the season to achieve better results.

The Bulldogs slumped back to the bottom of the Telstra Premiership ladder following the 28-6 loss to last year's grand finalists on a day the club paid tribute to former coach Steve Folkes at Belmore Sports Ground.

A quieter game than usual from Kieran Foran left much of the kicking reliance and direction to Jack Cogger, who struggled with his attacking options particularly in good territory on the Storm line.

"That's an area we need to be a little bit better," Pay said.

"That's where we need to make sure we set up a different option to take some pressure off Jack. We only had five good ball sets and you can't do that against a good side.

"There's a couple of stops in play and we tried to shift off a stoppage. We've got to learn to be a bit patient.

"They tried hard today. I thought in the second half we got ourselves back to 14-6 and were building a little bit of momentum for ourselves.

"We're building as a young team and I just said to them I'm proud of how they keep hanging in there but we've got to learn how to build a bit more pressure."

Pay defended the performance of Foran after the former Kiwi international came up with just one kick for seven metres in the contest after a man-of-the-match performance last week against the Titans.

"He's getting himself in the best physical condition he can and plays as hard and tough as he possibly can," Pay said.

"He's a couple of games off from a layoff so it will take him a couple more games just to get him back to where he was. I think it's just match fitness that will get him through a bit better."

Pay was asked about the side's position on the ladder after the final try conceded by Nelson Asofa-Solomona left them 16th on points differential leading into next week's clash against the Raiders.

"We don't want to be there but just need to make sure we're better with our performance next week than we were this week," Pay said.