The Canterbury Bulldogs have won four games on the hop to start a season for the first time in more than three decades following their victory over the Cronulla Sharks on the road on Saturday evening.
In an impressive performance, the blue and white limited the Sharks to just six points in the encounter.
Following their return to the finals for the first time in eight years last go around, there is a feeling Cameron Ciraldo's side will only improve in 2025, and that has been clear over the first month of competition, with the game against the Sharks a litmus test of their credentials.
โReally happy with a lot of the performance, really happy with the way the guys prepared this week. A lot of chat around winning three in a row and we had a six-day turnaround, but the guys just locked in,โ Coach Cameron Ciraldo said during his post-match press conference.
โWe didn't get a whole heap of training in, but we changed some things in our game this week, so we had to spend a fair bit of time walking through it and things like that.
โThe way everyone committed to that and committed to the plan was outstanding. We were excited about the challenge coming here against a consistent top-four team, and whether we won or lost, we'd have a line in the sand of where we are at.
โVery happy with how the game went, I thought we went out very hard, had to weather a storm there for a bit, but once we started to get our game on, we saw some really good signs of what we have been working on over the pre-season.
โA lot to like about it, a lot that we can get better at. I thought we gained some ascendancy a number of times and then some decisions, penalties or ill-discipline bobbed up, but I'm really happy with a lot of it.โ
Making the win all the more impressive for the Belmore-based outfit was the fact key players five-eighth Matt Burton and second-rower Viliame Kikau are still sidelined with injuries while Kurtis Morrin was also ruled out on match day, leading to a debut for Jack Todd.
Ciraldo revealed the club are attempting to build a 'next man up' mentality, something that was on full display during the contest given the performance of Bailey Hayward at five-eighth among others.
โA lot of teams go through this with the next man up mentality, and that's what we are trying to build here. The last two weeks has been our first chance to show we are built towards that,โ Ciraldo said.
โBailey Hayward had such a mature performance. Jack Todd coming onto the bench in his first game just didn't look out of place. Really happy with how those teams who have come in the team how they are playing, and we have some young guys who haven't come out to play yet.โ
Ciraldo was also thrilled with his club's work in attack, revealing a lot of the pre-season was focused around that after building through their defence last year.
The attack that was lacking in the first half of last year turned a corner once Toby Sexton replaced Drew Hutchison at halfback, and it hasn't shown any signs of slowing down yet.
โI think it shows that we have worked really hard on our system in offence over the pre-season. We have probably spent a bit more time on that than what did on defence this year. It felt like we spent a lot of time on defence last year, but this year we really had to work on our system in attack and put in a lot of time and effort into it. No matter who is playing, there are certain things we expect, and for those guys to come into those roles is awesome for us,โ Ciraldo said.
The Bulldogs will aim to keep their winning start rolling when they clash with the Newcastle Knights next weekend at home, before Round 6 brings their first bye of the year.
