It wasn't the type of performance to send shivers down the spines of the NRL's upper echelon, but it was a valuable two points for Canterbury as they overcame Wests Tigers 16-6 at Campbelltown Stadium.

Having come up with just one win over the past two months to drop out of the top eight, the Bulldogs finally released some of the pressure building on coach Kevin Moore.

The Bulldogs dominated the Benji Marshall-less Tigers but had to wait until a pair of Wade McKinnon clangers to finally put the home side away, the veteran fullback fumbling two crucial kicks close to his own line.

The first on 55 minutes - with the Bulldogs holding a slender 6-0 advantage that didn't do their dominance any justice - seemed to knock the stuffing out of the Tigers, who had tackled so gamely in the face of a mountain of ball for the visitors.

The Bulldogs capitalised from the scrum win, Trent Hodkinson putting in a kick for Ben Barba to touch down and a 10-0 scoreline.

Moved out to the wing to accommodate Tim Moltzen at fullback, McKinnon's night went from bad to worse as he fumbled a Kris Keating grubber 13 minutes from time, Josh Morris picking up the crumbs to confirm the win.

Moltzen got a consolation four-pointer off some clever work from hooker Robbie Farah, the skipper kicking the ball rather than picking it up from dummy half one metre out.

Canterbury were all over the Tigers virtually from the kick-off, the home's side's cause made tougher when Simon Dwyer was rushed to hospital for scans on his neck after suffering nerve damage.

"It's been a difficult month for us," Moore said of his forced personnel changes.

"We haven't had a lot of continuity over the last five or six weeks - that's only the second occasion where we've had our six, seven and nine in about five games of footy.

"Tonight was about turning up and winning ugly."

Sheens admitted his injury-ravaged side wasn't up to the mark with the ball, the absence of Marshall particularly telling.

"That's two weeks in a row now we've worked hard in defence but we've not had enough smarts to finish them off in attack," Sheens said.

"Our attack's actually putting us under the pump a bit, which is unusual for us."

McKinnon put on a brave face after what was a tough night: "Frustrating there with the two fumbles there .... unfortunately I fumbled two and it caused two tries," he said

Tigers doctor Scott Burne said the club was anxiously awaiting the results of scans on Dwyer, with the biggest worry being the fact he could not get feeling back into his arm.

"He's either stunned the nerves very badly to the arm or it could be more serious than that - that's why we took him to the hospital.

"The function wasn't returning.

Asked how serious the injury was, Burne said: "It depends on the return of the function, but obviously it's serious enough to warrant him to go to hospital tonight."

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