{"id":595742,"date":"2026-04-09T13:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T13:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595742\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T13:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T13:36:18","slug":"bulldogs-boilover-ends-penriths-perfect-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595742\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulldogs boilover ends Penrith’s perfect start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canterbury have emphatically silenced concerns over their start to the NRL<\/a> season with a stunning 32-16 defeat that ends Penrith’s perfect run to begin 2026.<\/p>\n

Just when the ladder-leading Panthers appeared unbeatable, maligned halfback Lachlan Galvin inspired the Bulldogs to the 16-0 lead they rode to victory as $6 outsiders.<\/p>\n

Serious questions had been raised about the Bulldogs’ attack during a 2-2 opening month, and halfback Galvin wore much of the criticism.<\/p>\n

But the 20-year-old took on the bulk of kicking at home on Thursday night, flaunted his combination Jacob Preston on the right edge and helped prove there’s still plenty of life in the Bulldogs this season.<\/p>\n

Canterbury have emphatically silenced concerns over their start to the NRL season with a stunning 32-16 defeat that ends Penrith’s perfect run to begin 2026.\u00a0Cameron Spencer<\/p>\n

Galvin’s one-two with Preston put the Bulldogs in position for their first try, before a flat pass to the second-rower restored the Bulldogs’ lead after Penrith equalised at 16-16.<\/p>\n

When Galvin put Preston into a hole and the second-rower passed inside for Sitili Tupouniua to score, the Bulldogs appeared in sight of victory up 28-16 with nine minutes left.<\/p>\n

Bronson Xerri also made an impressive return from his highly-publicised stint in reserve grade, throwing the last pass for Jacob Kiraz to give the Bulldogs a 10-0 lead after 11 minutes while Casey McLean was in the sin bin.<\/p>\n

The Panthers broke all sorts of records in the opening five weeks but proved they may be human after all in what was their worst performance at full-strength since their form slump to begin last year.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs started fast on Thursday to open the scoring through Viliame Kikau and Penrith were further on the back foot when Gerard Sutton retroactively sin-binned Casey McLean for a shoulder charge on Max King.<\/p>\n

Nathan Cleary had a mostly unhappy 200th NRL game, despite a beautiful cross-field kick that helped Tom Jenkins confirm a sixth consecutive try-scoring double on the left wing.<\/p>\n

Cleary’s bad pass turned the ball over before the Bulldogs’ first try, and at another point, he threw a pass much too high for Luke Garner to field near the touchline.<\/p>\n

Dylan Edwards darted over from a scrum play as the Panthers made inroads on the 16-0 deficit, but 15 errors conspired against them on an unhappy night.<\/p>\n

Making matters worse for Penrith, second-rower Liam Martin did not finish the game and was seen with ice on his knee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canterbury have emphatically silenced concerns over their start to the NRL season with a stunning 32-16 defeat that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-595742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595742","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=595742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}