IT'S now been 98 days since Canterbury last tasted defeat - to the Gold Coast Titans at Suncorp Stadium way back in round 10.

So who better to reveal the blueprint to upending the premiership favourites than Titans centre Jamal Idris, who spent four seasons at Belmore before switching to the holiday strip this year.

"We really concentrated on stopping their offloads - because if you stop that then you go a long way toward stopping Ben Barba," Idris told us. "He's always pushing up on guys like Frank Pritchard and Sam Kasiano, who look to charge straight through you and get their arms free.

"The key is locking their arms, and our forwards did a great job.

"We wanted them to try to go around us rather than through us, and that's what they had to do."

The laid-back Idris watches barely any football on TV and has not seen a Bulldogs match apart from the two times they've met Gold Coast.

"But I do still talk to a lot of the boys like Mick Ennis and Josh Reynolds," he said. "They sound like they're in a really good place."

So, too, is Idris.

He's just bought a new four-bedroom pad in Varsity Lakes, just a short drive from Skilled Park.

"I needed something big for my family," Idris laughed.

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