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Canterbury\u2019s attack was floundering two weeks ago \u2013 and Lachlan Galvin was part of the problem.<\/p>\n
The promising playmaker was guilty of doing too much: too many touches, too many runs<\/a> \u2013 a kid in the infancy of his career who is still learning the craft of watching, waiting and knowing when to pull the trigger.<\/p>\n But last week against Penrith was a turning point for Galvin, who helped orchestrate an upset against the unbeaten competition favourites<\/a>.<\/p>\n This week presents a new challenge for Galvin as he comes up against Parramatta \u2013 the club that tried to poach him from Wests Tigers before he ended up at Canterbury. He faces another challenge, too: finding that game-winning form week in and week out.<\/p>\n The difference with Galvin against Penrith last week, even compared to two or three weeks ago, is that he was watching and responding to what he was seeing from the defence. It\u2019s the cliche footballers love to use: \u201ceyes-up footy\u201d. But that\u2019s exactly how Galvin was playing, and he finally found the balance between running and passing the ball.<\/p>\n The Bulldogs ran the ball early against Penrith, and they were pulled up for an obstruction after Jacob Preston ran into Blaize Talagi, denying him the chance to stop a charging Connor Tracey.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Rather than let it rattle them, the Bulldogs reloaded, went again and swung over to the left to put Viliame Kikau across for the first try of the night.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Once Galvin had identified the weakness in Penrith\u2019s left-edge defence, he kept going back there all night and terrorised Talagi \u2013 an old school friend and rising talent on a similar trajectory. By full-time Talagi had racked up a remarkable nine missed tackles.<\/p>\n Galvin\u2019s combination with Preston has been particularly important for Canterbury this year, but it hasn\u2019t happened overnight.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve been working together on the right edge for about 10 months now, and they\u2019re finally starting to see the fruits of their labours.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved the combination on the right side with Preston \u2013 just put that on all the time, the short passing,\u201d Andrew Johns said of Galvin after the match.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, there are still some flaws in the way he plays, but what I love about him, he wants the ball in his hands. He stands up [and says], \u2018Give me the ball\u2019. He\u2019s still learning his game. He\u2019s only a really young guy.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not a natural halfback, but he\u2019s learning his trade. And if he\u2019s learning his game, he\u2019s learning the players around him. That combination there is building and building and building. So they got their plays.\u201d<\/p>\n When Penrith hit back with an equaliser just after half-time, Galvin went back to Preston.<\/p>\n While they had targeted Talagi\u2019s outside shoulder early on \u2013 slipping between him and Casey McLean \u2013 this time Galvin went for Talagi\u2019s inside shoulder after seeing a gap open up between the five-eighth and Isaiah Papali\u2019i. He ran the ball to the line and then passed short to Preston who went across to put the Dogs ahead once more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Penrith didn\u2019t score another point.<\/p>\n After 17 minutes of back and forth grind \u2013 the kind of footy that Penrith love \u2013 and of Canterbury making sloppy errors, the Panthers also started to make uncharacteristic mistakes.<\/p>\n While Penrith\u2019s left-edge attack had been the talk of the town all year, defensively it was the chink in their armour.<\/p>\n With field position in Canterbury\u2019s favour, it was a Galvin short ball to Preston once again on Talagi\u2019s inside that opened up the Panthers again, and a supporting Sitili Tupouniua went across to score the match-winner.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n With that combination seemingly humming, the next step in Galvin\u2019s game is to form those combinations across the field.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cHe has to get to the other side and build his game with Viliame Kikau,\u201d Johns said in commentary.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has to work out how to get to Tupouniua into space. He has to work on his plays for the dummy half. He has to work on his plays here with Bailey Hayward. That\u2019s the part of the halfback.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got different parts of the field. You need to work your game out from [those] different parts of the field, but what compliments the players in the back row and the centres and the fullback. But [it was a] big game for him tonight, big game.\u201d<\/p>\n Coach Cameron Ciraldo was hesitant to label the performance Galvin\u2019s best in the NRL. But he couldn\u2019t deny the improvement in his young half\u2019s decision-making.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was his 50th game tonight \u2013 a lot of people say it takes 50 games to feel like an NRL player or understand it a lot. I thought he was brilliant,\u201d Ciraldo said after the match.<\/p>\n \u201cHe controlled the game for long periods, he did what he needed to do, he didn\u2019t overplay his hand, he\u2019s improving every week. And, he has to deal with a fair bit, Lachy. There\u2019s always question marks asked about him and he\u2019s handled it great.\u201d<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Lachlan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/79234bbed0e59d21675f6b90f58bd9168c62c27f463f790b34de361abcd846bb.jpeg\")
Lachlan Galvin is getting better every week for the Bulldogs.Artwork: Stephen Kiprillis<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776440960_90_02386e916dad49bdeab7b3603b8e166199c143b8.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Billie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774476012_913_1f26d30eae26b4882dcc1afb0e0ac232ec55551b.png\")
Billie Eder<\/a> is a sports reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.![\"Dan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773949213_774_c6acc0581c14a7477781e092516e1810bef13f2c.png\")
Dan Walsh<\/a> is a sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 19, 2026 \u2014 9:30am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-616017","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\/616017","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=616017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}