Over the past two seasons, coach Cameron Ciraldo has made several changes to his spine in the ongoing search to not only find the right combination but also the right balance.<\/p>\n
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This has seen him sign Lachlan Galvin, let go of Toby Sexton and Reed Mahoney and rotate options across the four key positions of his spine, such as moving skipper Stephen Crichton from the centres and into the halves.<\/p>\n
Ciraldo\u2019s continual adjustment has seen Keary make a bold prediction about what he believes is coming next at the Bulldogs as they look to win their first premiership since 2004 in the next few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will see a new Bulldogs spine. I can guarantee you there will be a new nine, seven, six and one,\u201d Keary said on NRL 360.<\/p>\n
\u201cGalvin will be the six. They need to find a seven. Whether it\u2019s (Alex) Conti or (Mitchell) Woods or need to get one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Connor Tracey will move to maybe a 14 role. The whole thing will be turned over. (Freddy Lussick) will be their nine because they haven\u2019t got one at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘We will see a new spine at the Bulldogs | 01:06<\/p>\n
Keary\u2019s comments opened up the debate on the club\u2019s decision to put Crichton in the halves last weekend against the Sea Eagles and revert Matt Burton back to the centres.<\/p>\n
While the halves reshuffle caught the attention of many across the rugby league world, the decision paid off as they emerged victorious in golden point.<\/p>\n
However, it only added to Keary\u2019s point that Galvin is the only one to have locked in his spot in the spine with Crichton likely to drop back to the outside back either in the coming weeks or at season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, he\u2019s not playing six, he\u2019s playing seven,\u201d Keary added on Crichton\u2019s move to partner Galvin in the halves.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played halfback on the weekend. He ran the ball three times and did all the organising for them. He did all the kicking. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe had 15 kicks to Galvin\u2019s five and he didn\u2019t run the ball. He played halfback. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was their number seven, and Galvin played as their number six. He is their best option at seven – the best organiser.<\/p>\n
\u201cGalvin is their long-term six so they need to find a seven.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NRL great Luke Keary has delivered a blunt assessment of the Canterbury Bulldogs spine, suggesting that the club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-757351","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\/757351","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=757351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}