‘Pissing in our pocket’: Ciraldo‘s blunt response as big Bulldogs spine question arises

Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo was quizzed on whether the recent changes to his side’s spine has contributed to an inconsistent month of football after yet another loss in Round 24.

Canterbury-Bankstown were bested by the Roosters on Friday night, going down 32-12 after one of their best performances of the year against the Warriors a week earlier.

Before that was a disappointing loss to the Tigers and wins over the Sea Eagles and Dragons, accounting for a rollercoaster of results for the previously high-flying outfit.

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Ciraldo has injected Lachlan Galvin into the halves a week prior to that string of games, but his latest change has seen Bailey Hayward start at hooker over Reed Mahoney.

The Bulldogs mentor delivered a dry response when asked whether that change has contributed to his side’s patchy displays.

“I think everyone was pissing in our pocket last week about how good it looked,” he said.

“So not too concerned about that but when you lose possession, I think it was close to 70/30 in that middle part of the game, it’s pretty hard as a spine player.

“When the possession is against you like that and you’re giving stupid penalties away… not much the spine can do.”

Ciraldo also explained he was frustrated that his side have lost the consistency that placed them up the top-end of the ladder to begin with.

“I think over the last month we’ve had, before I say this the Roosters were really good tonight and they’ve been good for a long period, so not taking anything away from them,” he said.

“But in terms of what we can control, the last four games we’ve had two of our best performances and two of our worst.

“Not happy about that, you can’t be that team that goes good performance, poor performance.”

However, he also provided a reason as to why the Bulldogs haven’t been able to string wins together, pointing to his side’s injuries.

“We’ve had (consistency) for three quarters of the year, the last month has been disappointing,” Ciraldo explained.

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“I sort of blame myself there because we have guys carrying niggles and they just get through training instead of training. I’m going to stop that.

“If you can’t train (you get) results and a performance like that. We’ve got a deep squad, we’ve got a lot of good players who didn’t play tonight.

“So if we don’t want to prepare to win then I will put someone in who does want to prepare to win.”

But when quizzed on exactly why the Roosters were able to get the jump on the Bulldogs on Friday night, he had no answers.

“I thought we were ready to come here and put in a really good performance on the back of last week, so no,” Ciraldo said.

“But when the intensity went up, a few guys didn’t want to go with it.”