sammy 
Cameron Ciraldo cut a frustrated figure after the Canterbury Bulldogs’ 44-12 defeat to the Dolphins in Round 10, openly acknowledging flaws in his side’s performance while also questioning aspects of the officiating and the momentum swings that defined the match.
“Disappointed with a lot of parts of it,” Ciraldo said post-match. “There’s a lot of parts where I saw improvement, but a lot of parts where it was just really poor.”
Despite flashes of promise early, with the Bulldogs leading 8-0 and 12-4, the game shifted decisively after Jacob Preston was sin-binned for a late shot on Isaiya Katoa. From that point, the Dolphins seized control and never let go.
“That’s a tough one to answer, because all the games have been a little bit different, but discipline is hurting us,”
Ciraldo said when assessing his side’s recent struggles.
“There’s things that we can control on that, but I watch the game and I don’t see us being that much more ill-disciplined than the opposition.”
Ciraldo also questioned how the penalty flow is impacting his team’s ability to build pressure.
“Sometimes I just can’t understand where those penalties come from, but there’s ones where we are totally in control of, but I feel like there’s ones where we’re just an easy target at the moment,” he said.
“So that’s one. Every time we have a chance to apply pressure and we’re playing that field position game, we just don’t get rewarded for it.
“Whether someone lays down and holds their neck or whatever, we just find ourselves defending our try line again.”
Defensively, Ciraldo highlighted repeated issues on the edges, while praising the effort of his forward pack.
“The other big part of that, that we can control is just soft decisions defensively are really hurting us on the edges,” he said.
“I think our forwards are working their arses off, trying really hard, put a lot of effort in and then on the edges we either decide not to stay in system or decide to not put our body on the line and it costs us.”
“And therefore I feel so sorry for our forwards, because they just keep turning up and ripping in and doing their job and then they have that disappointment of sitting behind the try line.”
Pressed on whether there was a breakdown in structure out wide, Ciraldo dismissed the idea.
“No, I don’t think so, I think it’s just the soft decisions at times which are hurting us.”
He also pointed to a decisive stretch either side of half-time where the game slipped away.
“It sort of started just before half time from the 30 minute mark to the 70 minute mark we gave them 75 per cent of possession and the Dolphins, we all know how good of a team they are, especially with the ball,” Ciraldo said.
“So to give them 75 per cent possession in that time, there’s a 6-2 penalty count in there and 5-0 restarts. I think they scored six tries. It’s just killed us.”
“So a lot of it was self-inflicted, but there’ll be some questions I’m asking about a bit of it as well.”
The sin bin for Preston also drew Ciraldo’s frustration.
“I don’t know what he wanted him to do,” he said. “Katoa has got the ball, he’s going to tackle him and then he releases it in a millisecond before he hits him. I don’t understand it.”
Still, he admitted his side failed to respond effectively in the aftermath.
“We had to be tougher through that period. We defended great for a couple of minutes after that and then after 10 plays or so we let in just a soft try.”
“I can’t control that, but I can control us being a bit tougher for longer after that.”
Bulldogs captain Stephen Crichton also pointed to defensive issues on the edges as a key problem.
“Not good enough,” Crichton said. “I mean we’re doing a really good job locking up the middle and our edges just aren’t paying our middles back.”
“They work really hard to get back behind the ball and things like that and just on the edges with our edge defence not making our tackles and just not getting try saves.”
“There’s a few opportunities there where we could have saved it and three missed tackles led into a try, so just little plays like that where we pride ourselves on that stuff and just down one side on that just a bit of soft.”
Ciraldo added his own assessment of the recurring issue.
“We’re just hesitating, we’re flinching and at our best we don’t flinch,” he said. “At the moment when it’s our turn to make a play we’re flinching.”
The Bulldogs were also forced into a late reshuffle with Sean O’Sullivan replacing Matt Burton after illness, but Ciraldo refused to blame personnel changes.
“He got thrown in at lunchtime which is not ideal for him, but he’s an experienced player and there are some really good signs about what they were doing in the first half,” he said.
“But it’s a little bit hard for anyone when you’re at 75 per cent possession in a 40 minute period against you.”
