Cameron Ciraldo arrived at his Tuesday NRL 360 hit on Fox League with one win from his last six on the board, three straight losses, the longest slide of his head-coaching career, and a viral story about a Bulldogs player nearly missing a plane to Sydney. The Bulldogs coach managed to lance some of it, swatted the rest away, and quietly drew his line on what is and is not up for outside debate at Belmore.
'They're really good. Really good spirits. Great energy from the moment they walked in on Sunday morning,' Ciraldo said when asked how the playing group was holding up. 'Losing games is always hard to take and frustrating, but the process stays the same whether we win or lose. Obviously we'd like to be winning at the moment - that's not the case. But yeah, there's a bit of context around that as well. And I'm really happy with how the boys have attacked this week.' Asked to elaborate on that 'context,' Ciraldo declined: 'I don't need to go into - you know, people can draw their own conclusions.'
The more telling answer came on the airport story. Asked whether he had personally walked his players to the gate after a player had nearly missed the team flight to Brisbane two weeks earlier, Ciraldo broke into a grin. 'Yeah, we had a checklist there ready to go and no one missed the plane. So that's the first little win we've had for the weekend.' Pushed harder on whether the previous incident hinted at a culture problem, his answer was sharper. 'I know what our culture is like internally. I'm happy that three of our guys stayed back to make sure one didn't miss the plane.'
The NRL 360 panel, including Triple M's Mick Ennis and Fox League stalwart Paul Crawley, were sympathetic on the airport beat-up and tougher on the football. Ennis pointed back to the previous Friday's loss to the Cowboys as the more concerning data point. 'Their performance against the Cowboys when they couldn't score, when they had all that ball and field position - you don't make it count in the modern game, you'd end up losing. The Dogs, who midway through last year were winning the comp, it has been a slide.'
The panel also dug into the captain's most-discussed call from that Cowboys loss. With the Bulldogs camped on the Cowboys line, Lachlan Galvin appeared to dummy his way over before Stephen Crichton chose to play the percentages and kick rather than back the score. The Fox 360 desk argued the captain's call was the right one in isolation, but a symptom of a side currently struggling to back its own attacking instincts. 'When you go, OK, they've got to make changes - it's not working - the question is what changes do they actually make? That's the concern for Canterbury at the moment,' Ennis pressed.
Ahead of Thursday's Suncorp Stadium clash with the in-form Dolphins - a side Aaron Woods called 'best backline in the competition' on Freddy and The Eighth's tips show on the same network - the Bulldogs sit on one win from six and a fan base that, twelve months on from chasing the minor premiership, is openly frustrated. Ciraldo's bet, repeated three different ways, was that the inside of his squad and the outside conversation are simply two different things. 'I know what our culture is like internally,' he said. The next eighty minutes will decide whether the rest of the NRL is willing to take him at his word.
