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Canterbury coach Dean Pay believes his recent contract extension took the "tension" out of the NRL club and resulted in their first win of the season. A free-wheeling Bulldogs side celebrated Pay's new deal on Sunday by holding off a second-half comeback from the Wests Tigers to run out 22-8 victors. Eyebrows were raised on Friday when the Bulldogs opted to hand Pay another 12 months, despite getting off to their worst NRL start in almost 50 years. "It took a bit of the tension out of the place. That's what it was. I could feel that coming through the players. They were all rapt," Pay said of his new deal.  "We're a pretty tight group and we want to do well. We want do well for our fans and our members, but what we've got is what we've got. "We've got some young boys and they're going to take some time." Pay's men justified the club's decision - at least for a week - by scoring four tries inside the opening hour to stun the 15,127 crowd in Campbelltown. Led by key men Kieran Foran and Dylan Napa, as well as club debutant Nick Meaney, the Bulldogs were near flawless in a first-half ambush. Meaney began a three-try blitz when he picked up a loose ball near his tryline for a 95-metre counter attack finished off by Reimis Smith. Foran, who fought through an ankle issue for most of the match, scored the side's second, before setting up a third for Napa just before halftime. Yet the pressure-relieving win didn't come without a second-half scare. With his team leading 22-0 with 25 minutes to go, Pay would've grown nervous when Tigers winger Mahe Fonua finished off a right-side shift. The crowd then roared to life when Luke Garner scored soon after, but the Bulldogs held on to secure a sorely-needed victory. Compounding the loss for the Tigers was a hamstring problem for Benji Marshall, who exited the game midway through the second half. Tigers coach Michael Maguire said his team were taught a lesson after being given plenty of plaudits for their opening two matches. "A couple of good lessons for our boys (about) what you need to do to maintain consistency in the competition," Maguire said. "I think in the second half after we spoke, we came out and dropped the ball three times in the first five sets. "You're not going to put pressure on them if you're going to do that. And we then went to make about nine errors. Definitely not the way we planned to play."
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