{"id":749890,"date":"2026-06-21T01:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T01:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749890\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T01:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T01:22:17","slug":"ciraldo-defends-ugly-bulldogs-tactics-thats-our-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749890\/","title":{"rendered":"Ciraldo defends ugly Bulldogs tactics: \u2018That\u2019s our style\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> coach Cameron Ciraldo paid tribute to his players after they toughed out a gritty 13-12 golden point victory over the Sea Eagles<\/a> in NRL Round 16, their second narrow win in as many matches.<\/p>\n

One of the lowest scoring clashes of the 2026 season, Saturday night\u2019s match saw even less points than the Bulldogs last home game, the 14-12 win over the Eels<\/a> in Round 14.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might not have been a pretty win, but that\u2019s our style of game,\u201d Ciraldo declared<\/a> after the Bulldogs were outscored three tries to two by Manly but still found a way to get the two premiership points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the boys enjoy those style of games, nice tight contests, and it was awesome to get the result in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0\u2018Touch and go\u2019 – Todd Payten reveals injury status of Cowboys gun<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Burto was brilliant tonight\u2019 declares Ciraldo after Crichton halves switch<\/p>\n

Ciraldo also explained the thinking behind several late pre-game tactical changes that saw captain Stephen Crichton switched to five-eighth with Matt Burton moving into the centres for Bronson Xerri who was an unused reserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times 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 said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always had in the back of our minds that it might happen one day\u2026 we had the bye last week, so 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 (Matt Burton) find his best and most consistent form\u2026 and spoke about maybe we can do that by (him) playing in the centres, just taking a little bit of responsibility off him for a bit and just allow him to just enjoy his footy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Burto was brilliant tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ciraldo explained the positional switch was intentionally kept in-house, allowing everyone at the club to continue with their preparations without the pressure of external scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Despite still managing the ongoing effects of a persistent should injury that ruled him out of State of Origin Game II, Crichton had a powerful game that included taking on a significant amount of the Bulldogs\u2019 kicking responsibilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also scored his side\u2019s first try and slotted the match-wining field goal in golden point.<\/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,\u201d Ciraldo said in praise of his captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do that on the back of hardly any contact training… is a credit to how tough he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 11th placed Bulldogs have won their last two matches and next face the Titans<\/a> on Friday night in NRL Round 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canterbury Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo paid tribute to his players after they toughed out a gritty 13-12 golden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-749890","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\/749890","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=749890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}