Cameron Ciraldo never planned to get into coaching. It just happened.
Which isn’t to say that he now finds himself in this position, two wins away from a grand final, because of pure luck.
Watch every game of the NRL Telstra Premiership Finals Series before the Grand Final, LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Ivan Cleary and Phil Gould saw something in him. Specifically, they saw the way Ciraldo — even after he had hung up the boots and officially retired from the NRL — was often lurking in the background at Patrician Brothers in Blacktown, watching Penrith’s junior reps train.
WHAT’S GAMBLING REALLY COSTING YOU? Set a deposit limit. For Free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.
While Ciraldo didn’t necessarily see coaching in his future, he did want to help people in some capacity.
The following week, after Gould first saw Ciraldo at Patrician Brothers, he was actually getting involved. Helping the coaches. Helping the players.
“No one ever asked him to do that,” Gould said on Wide World of Sports’ Six Tackles with Gus podcast in 2022.
“You could just see that he had a genuine love for it and feel for it.”
So, Gould offered Ciraldo an assistant role with Penrith’s S.G. Ball squad.
That was back in 2013, when a constant battle with injuries restricted Ciraldo to just 11 NRL games with the Panthers.
By the end of the year, he had helped take Penrith all the way to a minor premiership and then the S.G. Ball grand final.
The Panthers lost 20-6 to Balmain. Head coach Mark Horo still remembers that game. He also remembers the one regret he had afterwards.
You see, Ciraldo had come up to him earlier in the season wanting advice on what to say after a few of the forwards asked him a question.
Just tell them what you would have wanted to hear as a player, Horo said.
“That’s all I needed to give him,” Horo, who played 120 games for Parramatta, Western Suburbs and Auckland between 1990 and 1997, told foxsports.com.au.
“It was already a guy that was on his way. He went on to win premierships in Jersey Flegg with Garth Brennan. He didn’t need a lot of advice.”
But it was advice that Ciraldo kept with him on his journey, telling The Daily Telegraph in 2018 that when he committed to coaching full-time he wrote two things down.
“One was I was going to be honest — you can’t get in trouble for being honest,” Ciraldo said at the time.
“And the second was, I would like to be a coach that I would’ve liked to have had.”
Ciraldo was always open to advice and always asking questions. But on that one afternoon against the Tigers at St Marys Leagues Stadium, Horo made one mistake.
He didn’t ask Ciraldo what he would have done.
He didn’t think he would need to.
Penrith won 32-12 against Balmain earlier in the year. Horo wasn’t expecting to need a Plan B. But he did, and Ciraldo could have been the man to provide it.
“I haven’t sat in a first grade box, but I’ve got to NSW Cup and when you make decisions in the box, whether it’s a HIA or a sin-binning, you’ve got to have five plans in your head,” Horo said.
“I felt like he (Ciraldo) had already had those five plans. I don’t know if he would have written them down, but it was interesting though that I felt that calmness… he had that ability to handle pressure.”
That one word, calmness, came up a lot when speaking to Horo. For Greg Alexander, who worked closely with Ciraldo during his time at Penrith, it was a similar word.
“Just how composed he was,” Alexander told foxsports.com.au.
“Sitting in the box with Cameron when he was interim coach in 2018, just the composure and the clear thoughts under pressure… clear in what was needed either in game or just through the week.”
MORE NRL NEWS
TALKING PTS: ‘Smartest in a long time’ – Ivan’s finals masterstroke; clutch query
‘RIP UP HIS CONTRACT’: How Robbo saved Radley from axe amid Roosters sanctions
Ciraldo quickly transitioned through Penrith’s system from those early days helping out the S.G. Ball team to being awarded 2015 Holden Cup Coach of the Year and then taking over as interim coach when Anthony Griffin was unexpectedly sacked.
Keep in mind, the Panthers were sitting equal fourth on the ladder with a month left in regular season at that point so this was anything but a normal situation.
In fact, Ciraldo found himself right in the middle of it — not only because he was taking over as interim coach but also because Gould had confirmed that Ciraldo twice handed in his resignation over the way he was treated by Griffin.
It would have been enough to bring any rookie coach, let alone one preparing for a finals series, undone. But not Ciraldo.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise considering the way he handled himself in the box on the Gold Coast in his first game in charge. The signs were also there from the very start, according to Horo.
“You could tell that he was always going to be something special. I just felt really good (about him),” he said.
Horo joked that when he was sitting in the box with Ciraldo, the now Bulldogs coach would usually say “f*** all”. But there was power to the few words he would offer up.
“(It was like) if you’re going to say something, it better be worth it,” Horo said.
“Just calmness under pressure.”
There’s that word again.
Some of that, of course, came from playing under Cleary at Penrith.
Ciraldo previously said the one thing he enjoyed about the Panthers coach was the fact he gave his players freedom to play how they wanted. It was almost a good sign if he didn’t have to speak to the players and if he did, whether it was individually or to the group, he rarely ever felt the need to give anything close to a spray to get his message across.
Ciraldo is similar. In an interview with Code Sports, Dylan Edwards called him “tough but fair”.
“You could just tell how much he cared about you. Not just as a player but a person as well,” the Panthers fullback added.
Moses Leota, meanwhile, told Code Sports that all Ciraldo ever wanted was for his players to be “putting in the work”.
“If you’re taking shortcuts, he’ll let you know. He’s a tough fella and he holds players accountable,” Leota added.
While so much of the focus on Ciraldo’s early success at Belmore has been on the defensive structures he put in place, and understandably so, it’s not just about the Xs and Os according to Alexander.
“It’s about your personality,” he added.
“Have you got the personality to inspire and get the best out of the players you’ve got? Can you get these players to play to their potential and even go beyond that?”
In Ciraldo’s case, both questions were answered almost immediately.
“It was quite obvious Cameron could do that because of his personality, because of his demeanour and because of his ability to handle pressure,” Alexander said.
“It was all there.”
Leota and Edwards both played under Ciraldo in the Penrith squad that won the Holden Cup in 2015. Other NRL players to come out of that team include Brent Naden, Robert Jennings, Tyrone May, Jarome Luai, Soni Luke, James Fisher-Harris, Corey Harawira-Naera and Kaide Ellis.
Ciraldo also coached Nathan Cleary since he was a teenager.
It means that many of Penrith’s players that will run out to Accor Stadium on Sunday afternoon know what to expect against the Ciraldo-coached Bulldogs.
That, of course, goes the other way too, especially when you consider the number of former Panthers who will be lining up in the blue and white.
There are also some similarities to the way Ciraldo has built his success at Belmore.
It starts at the back with a defensive-minded player in Connor Tracey who is all effort like Edwards, his opposite number on Sunday.
More broadly, however, Ciraldo recruited players who were fit and mobile like former Panther Jaeman Salmon and Kurt Mann — players who could maintain line speed in defence and limit the opposition’s run metres as a result.
The numbers back it up too, with the Bulldogs conceding the fewest run metres (1263), linebreaks (3.7), tries (3.0) and points (17.6) in the competition despite making the most tackles inside their own 20 (22.8).
They have also held their opposition to single digits eight teams — their most in a single season since 1993.
MORE NRL NEWS
LONG GAME: Coach’s stunning act of Sharks loyalty… but why clock is ticking
INSIDE: Rise of Penrith’s secret weapon… answer to $6m question should terrify rivals
Cleary not buying Bulldogs mind games | 00:49
While Ivan conceded on Friday that there could be “some similarities” between the way both teams are coached, he said he wasn’t sure if the two teams are “as similar as everyone thinks we are”.
“Ciro had a huge hand in what we did here and of course he’s going to take that with him, and there are a few players who played here,” the Panthers coach added.
Alexander, meanwhile, said that while Ciraldo put the right “processes” in place at the Bulldogs to build a strong defence it was just as much to do with his recruitment.
“They just needed to tweak their roster and get the right people in (that) they knew could do it on a consistent basis and do it for 80 minutes,” he said.
“It’s no surprise to see what the Dogs have done this year.”
Of course, initially there were expectations for more considering the way the Bulldogs started the year before the decision to drop starting halfback Toby Sexton for Lachlan Galvin put Ciraldo’s coaching firmly under the microscope.
If the Bulldogs lose and crash out of the finals, the pressure will only intensify.
Horo, having worked one of the best at dealing with it in Wayne Bennett, said the ability to handle pressure “is what makes you as a coach”.
And whether it was that first game in the box after Griffin was sacked or dealing with the intensity of the media glare this season, pressure is nothing new for Ciraldo.
Although it comes in a very different form on Sunday against his former team, with the Bulldogs at risk of becoming just the sixth top-four team to go out in straight sets since 2012.
But “if anyone could pull it off, Ciro could”.
At least, that is what Horo thinks. And despite his loyalty to Penrith, the Kiwi international said that if he had to put on the boots again on Sunday he’d do so for the Bulldogs instead.
“That’s how much respect (I have for Ciraldo),” Horo said.
“I’d have a shot at Penrith. I would play for him no matter what.
“I feel like that’s probably the greatest compliment that you can give a coach.”
Can Ciraldo end Penrith’s premiership run? Watch Sunday’s blockbuster semi-final along with EVERY game of the NRL Telstra Premiership Finals Series before the Grand Final, LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Discussion about this post