{"id":749063,"date":"2026-06-20T15:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T15:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749063\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T15:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T15:26:14","slug":"nrl-2026-cameron-ciraldo-explains-stephen-crichton-switch-post-match-press-conference-win-over-sea-eagles-matt-burton-news-videos-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749063\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Cameron Ciraldo explains Stephen Crichton switch, post-match press conference, win over Sea Eagles, Matt Burton, news, videos, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cameron Ciraldo has explained why he made the bold decision to shake-up his spine and play Stephen Crichton at five-eighth \u2014 which resulted in a tight win over the Sea Eagles.<\/p>\n

Crichton kicked the winning field goal in golden point to down a high-flying Manly outfit and also scored in a dominant display as a first receiver, swapping with Matt Burton.<\/p>\n

Burton was originally named in the No.6, but switched to the centres when the Dogs took the field in a move Ciraldo believed was \u201calways an option\u201d for his side.<\/p>\n

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And it could be a sign of things to come if his comments are anything to go by.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt time where we\u2019ve been a bit short in the halves over the last two pre-seasons, Critta\u2019s jumped in there and he\u2019s shown a lot of potential in that position,\u201d Ciraldo explained in his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201c(It\u2019s) something we have always had in the back of our minds that it might happen one day and we have seen little glimpses of it throughout the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think we had the bye last week, we had a really good opportunity to sit back and chat about how the first half of the season has gone, how individuals have gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe change was more around helping (Burton) find his best and most consistent form, we had our mid-season catch-up and talking to Burto about what can make him as consistent as he possible can be.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd we narrowed it down to a couple of areas and then we spoke about well, maybe we can do that by you playing in the centres.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust taking a little bit of responsibility off him for a bit and just allow him to just enjoy his footy, and I thought Burto was brilliant tonight, he was brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ciraldo also made it clear this wasn\u2019t a quick decision made in the heat of the moment. Instead, it was planned and trained since the Dogs last outing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe trained this for two weeks over the bye and I thought the way Burto trained over those two weeks, and the way he played, I thought he was brilliant,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll enjoy this win to start, but I was really proud of our whole club that we were able to train it. Everyone knew what was going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we kept it in-house and everyone just got on with their preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Crichton, although he had the No.4 on his back, it was another unofficial start at five-eighth for the man who has worn the No.6 for Samoa twice.<\/p>\n

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Ciraldo also made it clear that Crichton\u2019s niggling shoulder injury remains, but he was brave in defending in the front line and marking up against one of the game\u2019s toughest back rowers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCritta hasn\u2019t been able to do contact training for a long time now, and then to get thrown into five-eighth,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew he\u2019d handle the game management side of it and the leadership, but he had to also mark Haumole (Olakau\u2019atu) for 80 minutes who was charging off the back fence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to do that on the back of hardly any contact training over the last, you know, all season is a credit to how tough he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crichton himself was critical of his own performance, saying: \u201cI feel like coach really made it simple for me, just simple plays done really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot trying to over play and I feel like I did it a few times tonight, just over playing, ball on the ground and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Ciraldo has explained why he made the bold decision to shake-up his spine and play Stephen Crichton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-749063","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\/749063","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=749063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}