Cameron Ciraldo has praised the performance of young halfback Lachlan Galvin as the Canterbury Bulldogs snuck home against the St George Illawarra Dragons in Golden Point.
The only player who did not talk to the media during the club’s preparations for the match at Allegiant Stadium, Galvin entered 2026 under a ton of pressure after making the switch to Belmore midway through last season.
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Failing to find consistency during last year’s campaign, he was made the scapegoat for the side exiting the finals in straight-sets against the Storm and Panthers.
However, he has been able to put that all behind him and produced a strong display in his first outing of the 2026 NRL season, which saw him link up a beautiful combination with Matt Burton in the halves and Jacob Preston on the right-edge.
Speaking post-match, Ciraldo admitted that he was “very proud” of the youngster’s performance and believes he will only get better as time progresses and he furthers his development.
“Very proud. I said all pre-season (that) his best ability at the moment is his ability to learn,” Ciraldo said of Galvin.
“He’s a 20-year-old halfback and he’s learning really quickly. If you think about all the really good halfbacks and what they were like at 20 he’s tracking in a great direction.
“He’s learning really quickly. I thought what he’s been able to learn over the pre-season and then some lessons he took at the Newcastle trial and took into tonight I thought was good.
“He’ll get better and better. He’s committed to his craft and he’ll get better every game and every year.”
As Galvin showed fans and his critics that he belongs in the halfback role, skipper Stephen Crichton was able to put the finishing touches on the victory in Golden Point with a field goal in between the posts as time nearly expired.
“Truly blessed to be in that moment, but probably credit to our coaching staff. We trained for those moments throughout the whole year and then when it’s in the biggest lights you always fall back to your training,” Crichton said.
“The way that the boys held in there like basically 90 minutes of the game, kind of gave me that shot at the end but I definitely wouldn’t have had that without the play of balls before mine and just the set up plays before that and obviously Milky’s [Bailey Hayward] pass too.
“It was definitely a team effort and I’ll probably get a lot of praise for that last kick but if it wasn’t for the boys sticking in there all the way to the end, probably wouldn’t have had that shot in the first place.”
Returning to Australia in the coming days, the Bulldogs will have two-and-a-half weeks to their next game, which will be against last year’s minor premiers Canberra Raiders, in the nation’s capital.
“We’ve got 19 days before our next game, so we’ll go home and get into a bit of work,” Ciraldo added.
“We don’t really need to focus on our next game until probably the week leading up to that, so we’ll go home, recover firstly and get some work in and then look at our next opponent.”
