{"id":468077,"date":"2026-02-09T07:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468077\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T07:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:35:12","slug":"bulldogs-hit-with-vegas-bill-before-season-opener-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468077\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulldogs hit with Vegas bill before season opener &#8211; NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Bulldogs&#8217; preparations for their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> season opener in Las Vegas have taken an unexpected turn as new rules force clubs to rethink their bench strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Under the NRL&#8217;s updated interchange rules, clubs can name six players on the bench, provided only four are used during the match.<\/p>\n<p>Teams are permitted to take 22 players to the United States for the occasion, and Bulldogs coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/coaches\/cameron-ciraldo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameron Ciraldo<\/a> is expected to travel with two additional squad members.<\/p>\n<p>While the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> has agreed to fund flights and accomodation for participating teams, any additional arrangements fall back on the clubs themselves.<\/p>\n<p>SMH reports that the Dogs will have to pay $15,000 to cover the costs of the extra two additional players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ll take 24, mainly to help with our training, and it will allow us to get as close to 13-on-13 while we&#8217;re over there,\u201d Ciraldo told SMH.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the new interchange rule, and having to carry two extra players on the bench, we wanted also to take a couple of extras, just in case.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Bulldogs have plenty of questions looming over their best side for 2026, however, at least one of those has already been answered for Round 1, with youngster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/mitchell-woods\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mitchell Woods<\/a> missing through injury.<\/p>\n<p>Cantebury will clash with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/st-george-illawarra-dragons\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bulldogs&#8217; preparations for their NRL season opener in Las Vegas have taken an unexpected turn as new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-468077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}