{"id":864646,"date":"2026-08-22T18:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T18:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864646\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T18:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T18:22:12","slug":"nrl-2026-cameron-ciraldo-reveals-five-players-had-covid-this-week-jacob-preston-in-hospital-bulldogs-press-conference-news-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864646\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Cameron Ciraldo reveals five players had Covid this week, Jacob Preston in hospital, Bulldogs press conference, news, reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo has revealed the club endured a horror week leading up to Saturday\u2019s much-needed win over the Dragons<\/a>, with one star even spending a stint in hospital.<\/p>\n

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The Bulldogs played some of their best footy of the season to keep their slim top eight hopes alive but their preparation was anything but ideal as Ciraldo told reporters in his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n

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Star back rower Jacob Preston was on a drip dealing with an infection according to Ciraldo, but you wouldn\u2019t have known it given his performance against the Dragons. <\/p>\n

Preston, who knocked back a three-year, $1.9 million extension offer during the week, was one of the Bulldogs\u2019 best in the 44-14 win.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe actually didn\u2019t train with us the last two days, he was in hospital with an infection, so he was on a drip uh the last couple of days, so maybe might have to do that next week as well because he played pretty good,\u201d Ciraldo quipped before revealing several players had Covid at the start of the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things happen in a footy season, every team goes through it. A lot of them you don\u2019t hear about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a bit harsh on the boys last week, and then you rock up Monday and about five of them have tested positive to Covid, so no wonder they\u2019re a bit flat. I don\u2019t know, these things happen. <\/p>\n

When asked if the Covid drama was legitimate, Ciraldo replied: \u201cI don\u2019t tell lies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dragons rue error-filled performance | 04:03<\/p>\n

Matt Burton was another player who had a chequered preparation this week after he went back to his home town of Dubbo to deal with a family matter according to his coach.<\/p>\n

Burton was sensational, with the switch to right centre paying dividends. <\/p>\n

He worked well on that side of the field with Preston and Lachlan Galvin, who also enjoyed a strong game.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurto had to go back to Dubbo and didn\u2019t get much training in,\u201d Ciraldo revealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted the opportunity to go up against Val Holmes and I thought that was a really good sign of his mentality and where he was at.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t played right side much at all but he wanted that challenge. I loved some of his effort plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like the move balanced up the team a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo has revealed the club endured a horror week leading up to Saturday\u2019s much-needed win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-864646","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\/864646","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=864646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}