Cogger's mission to become Foran's right-hand man

Canterbury playmaker Jack Cogger will get another chance to repay Dean Pay's faith against the Titans on Saturday, despite declaring his performance in Magic Round against former club Newcastle wasn't up to scratch.

Named alongside veteran five-eighth Kieran Foran for the Bulldogs' trip to the Gold Coast this week, Cogger realises he has to be better if he's going to fend off budding rival Lachlan Lewis for the permanent role.

Canterbury coach Pay publicly declared last week Cogger had his nose in front of Lewis after the pair combined while Foran was sidelined with injury.

Making the selection dilemma potentially easier for Pay this week is the impending birth of Lewis' first child with wife Stephanie, due for arrival on Tuesday.

"It's obviously good for the confidence although you just want to go out the week later and fulfil him with that and make sure you're not only doing what you did the week before but hopefully getting better," Cogger said of Pay.

"I don't think it was a massive setback for me on the weekend. It probably wasn't my better games but as long as I can keep getting better and stamp my name onto that position I'll be happy.

"All of us including Foz (Foran) and Brandon Wakeham are helping each other all the time. If we're all playing good we're pushing ourselves to get better. I think if you've got pressure from below it will make you a better player and if it doesn't you'll find yourself in reserve grade pretty quickly."

The Bulldogs were left to rue a 78th minute decision against them in Magic Round loss to the Knights but Cogger said the result had already slipped away from them.

Despite joking that 50-50 calls had gone against him since his days at Newcastle, Cogger said the Dogs have to stop putting themselves in positions they can't control.

"I don't think you can rely on getting [calls] because you won't," Cogger said.

"You just don't get them, I'm used to it, it's part of the game for me at the moment. Obviously our starts in the last couple of weeks haven't helped us, we've been down 12-0 and 16-0 at stages of the game.

"We had enough opportunities to at least get even [against the Knights], looking at the video the opportunities were there. At least some of shape and structures are causing some problems for the defence. It's just individual and a few little things we need to fix up to get the execution right."

The Bulldogs have named Corey Harawira-Naera to start in the back-row with Rhyse Martin recalled onto the bench in the only major change to the side.