the 20-18 loss to the Roosters<\/a> and lasted only five minutes before suffering the setback.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure how bad it is but he felt it in the same spot where he injured it about eight weeks ago,\u201d Ciraldo said in his post-game press conference.<\/p>\n
It is heartbreaking news for Tupouniua, who had been in career-best form to open 2026 before going down with a torn hamstring in late June. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s pretty devastated because he was training really well,\u201d added Ciraldo. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just excited to get back playing. This is what he does, this is what he loves doing, so he\u2019s pretty shattered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ciraldo had spoken glowingly of Tupouniua\u2019s influence on the team, and its younger players in particular, earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe brings a fair bit of intensity to the way we train,\u201d the Bulldogs coach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been up there with our best players all year consistently. He just brings so much to our team, physical wise, but also energy-wise. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing I\u2019ve been most surprised by Sitili in his two years here is the leadership that he brings. He\u2019s really come along in terms of leading young guys, and we\u2019ve done well the last few weeks, but we\u2019ve known that it\u2019d be great when we have Sitili back on the field and just watching him out there training last night gave everyone a little bit of excitement.\u201d<\/p>\n
DCE “Trying to find our best 80 minutes” | 07:14<\/p>\n
It makes Tupouniua\u2019s latest injury all the harder to cop for the Bulldogs, who could have cemented their position inside the top eight with a win on Friday.<\/p>\n
Instead, they face a do-or-die game against the eighth-placed Rabbitohs next week. <\/p>\n
While disappointed with the result, Ciraldo could take plenty of confidence from the way his side took it to another premiership contender having defeated the Warriors last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, we\u2019re not leaving you with any less confidence than what we came here with,\u201d Ciraldo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t play the way we wanted to tonight. The Roosters deserved the win. They were really good for periods, but I think they\u2019ll probably think they can play better as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what we can do when we play our style of footy but too many errors tonight didn\u2019t allow us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Ciraldo has revealed \u201cshattered\u201d second rower Sitili Tupouniua re-injured his hamstring in what shapes as a big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-846909","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\/846909","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=846909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}