Canterbury Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo has shut down any talk Matt Burton will be moved out of the halves ahead of Friday evening's clash with the Cronulla Sharks.
A rumour which did the rounds more than once during the off-season, it was thought that Canterbury's numerous signings in the backline with ability to play in the halves may have shuffled Burton to the centres.
The former Penrith Panthers, who once was named Dally M centre of the year during his debut season, has struggled to guide the Bulldogs away from the bottom of the table and again couldn't have the desired influence during Round 1 as Canterbury fell well short against the Parramatta Eels.
Despite other options at the club to play in the six including Blake Taaffe, who is currently playing fullback, and Drew Hutchison, Ciraldo told media on Thursday after the club's captain's run ahead of the game against Cronulla that Burton will remain the number six.
โHe's our five-eighth at the moment,โ Ciraldo said on Thursday.
โEveryone knows Matt is able to play centre, he's won a grand final there, played rep footy there but he's also got some really good attributes about his game at five-eighth.
โLast week, he kept us in the game with his kicking game when we were on the back foot. When teams are on the back foot, that's a really hard thing to do and I think he did a great job of that last week.
โDoes he need to get more involved? 100 per cent. When he touches the ball, good things happen and our team benefits from it. So we want to get him in those positions this week.
โHe's working really hard, he's put himself in those positions at training and we'd like to see it come out tomorrow.
โWe all know Matt can be a great centre but I think he's going to be a great five-eighth as well.โ
Burton, who is again going to be in the mix to come from the New South Wales' Blues State of Origin bench, such is his utility value, has one of the competition's biggest kicking games, but has failed to adapt his game at this stage to help the Bulldogs become a more consistent outfit.
The feeling is the club simply don't have enough in the forwards, but each loss will only continue to swirl the rumour mill around where Burton will play, particularly with Stephen Crichton currently sitting in the centres after being signed to play fullback.
