Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Bulldogs coach has a theory, but he hopes it\u2019s not the right one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to think not but that\u2019s certainly what it looked like,\u201d Ciraldo said when asked if complacency played a part in their 38-20 loss to the Eels on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we started well, we started with good energy and intent. But any sort of error and penalty we had, we just showed no resilience to defend it. The scoreboard ticked over. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Parra were really good, exactly what we expected them to be. So deserved the win but we were way off our best.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs were dealt a last-minute blow ahead of Sunday\u2019s game when Enari Tuala went down with a hamstring injury on \u201cbasically the last rep\u201d of their training run on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Ciraldo made the surprising decision to play Josh Curran in Tuala\u2019s place, explaining to reporters post-game that he had full confidence in the versatile forward to get the job done.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s played a fair bit at the Warriors, played centre a number of times, done a lot there in the pre-season,\u201d Ciraldo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thought considering how late the switch was, Jon Sua\u2019s played one game in first grade two years ago, just thought it would have been a bit tough on him to throw him in an unfamiliar position at late notice and Josh has had plenty of reps there to be able to do that job, he didn\u2019t get caught out defensively today, he was fine. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the rationale behind it. We\u2019re obviously missing two of our top centres there in Enari and Critter and Josh is a player that\u2019s played over 100 games, knows the system well.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, winger Jacob Kiraz also went off with a knee injury and will undergo scans. <\/p>\n
In welcome news, skipper Stephen Crichton was \u201cvery close\u201d to returning this week and is likely to be named to play the Broncos but his inclusion will matter little if the rest of the team dishes up what it did on Sunday. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur best is good enough to challenge anyone. Our worst is a long way off that so we want to be consistent, we want to be playing close to our best every week but today was far from it and we need to figure out why,\u201d Ciraldo said. <\/p>\n
The Bulldogs have a five-day turnaround ahead of next week\u2019s clash with the Broncos, who are facing their own injury crisis like Parramatta but coming off a stirring win over the Tigers.<\/p>\n
The short preparation means little to coach Ciraldo, who had a blunt message when asked about it on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho cares how long the turnaround is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we turn up with the right mindset, we\u2019ll give ourselves a chance. If we turn up with that crap, we\u2019ll get what we deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second rower Viliame Kikau was uncharacteristically quiet on Sunday with just six runs for 32 metres and told reporters the players would have to \u201clook at themselves in the mirror\u201d after the 18-point loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a good question. That was the question we got asked in that change room,\u201d Kikau said when asked if the team\u2019s attitude was the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone has to go back and have a good look at themselves in the mirror and come in tomorrow. We just can\u2019t let our head down. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long competition. We\u2019ve got to get back tomorrow and get back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally published as \u2018Turn up with that c**p\u2019: Cameron Ciraldo fumes as Bulldogs fall to Eels<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week the Bulldogs looked like world beaters. This week? Not so much. Coach Cameron Ciraldo joked he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-617825","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\/617825","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=617825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}