A try inside the last three minutes for Bulldogs' Phil Tonkin and a conversion from Kurt Weekes appeared to have given the Bathurst boys victory before a late slip up allowed the Platypi one last shot - literally - at taking a win on the road.

Forbes had an opportunity to win after the final siren when Harry Webber was sent off for a high tackle, giving Daniel Sweeney a penalty kick to win the match, but his effort went right of the uprights.

Bulldogs were down 12-0 inside the opening 13 minutes of the match but found a way back into the game during a strong window of play in the second half, and were led by a pair of tries to captain Peter Fitzsimmons.

Bulldogs forward Dale Norris said Forbes came out firing and forced the team to have a deep think about where they had to make improvements.

"That was a great game for us. We've got a younger side that's coming together and to come through a hard fought game like that against Forbes is really good to see," he said.

"We spoke through the week about the fact that they would come out hard and we wanted to come out positive and show intent from the word go.

"We went away from it a little bit but we've got some great leaders in this team, plus Sione [Naufahu] in the backline. He absolutely commands it."

Forbes captain Andrew Hubbard said his team's set piece work was fantastic but other areas of their game allowed the home side to make a comeback.

"Hats off to Bulldogs in the middle there when they turned it around. Unfortunately we didn't keep our foot on the gas. Our set piece was really good but we gave away a lot of penalties," he said.

"The penalty count would have been well lopsided but that's our own fault. That's something we can work on, and if we could have got that out of our game we would have gone closer to winning."

Forbes didn't waste time setting up camp inside the Bulldogs' territory.

Their dominance at the scrum didn't allow the Bulldogs to make an escape out of their own half and the pressure eventually became too much in the 11^th minute when Tom Maguire crossed for the opening try.

On the next possession the Platypi were in again when James Moss found space down the left wing and sprinted more than 70 metres to extend the lead.

Adam Plummer put Bulldogs in a great position to hit back immediately when he found space but on the next scrum the hosts lost the ball for the third time at the set piece.

However, Bulldogs continue to dominate possession inside the last 10 minutes of the opening half and it led to Fitzsimmons crashing over for a vital try with three minutes until the break.

Forbes started the second half in similar fashion to the first as they kept the hosts pinned near their try line but this time Bulldogs survived a couple of close calls.

That defensive resilience paid off when Bulldogs took the ball up the other end in the 56^th minute and brought the scores back to 12-all when Fitzsimmons scored his second try of the day.

Bulldogs took the lead for the first time when Joel Harper muscled his way over from close range.

The missed conversion left Bulldogs up 17-12.

Moss made sure Forbes wouldn't lose touch as his unconverted try brought proceedings back to level terms with 14 minutes to go.

The Platypi's superior scrum kept giving the Bulldogs headaches and it led to Rusiate Lawanikula scoring a potential match-winning try in the 73^rd minute.

Forbes' ill discipline at the breakdown continued to be a hindrance to their own game and Bulldogs subsequently brought the ball right up to the Forbes try line inside the last five minutes.

Tonkin got the breakthrough and Weekes' conversion saw the lead change hands for the fourth and final time in the game.

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