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The coaches don’t like each other after a bitter falling-out during their time together at Penrith and Cameron Ciraldo got the last laugh over Anthony Griffin in their first NRL encounter at WIN Stadium on Sunday.
St George Illawarra had won six in a row on their Wollongong turf but Ciraldo’s understrength Bulldogs returned to Belmore with two valuable competition points to leapfrog Griffin’s side on the lower reaches of the ladder.
It’s unlikely Griffin will be at the helm much longer, let alone next time Canterbury take on the Dragons in 2024, with his side now holding a 2-6 record, better only than the 1-7 Wests Tigers, after losing their fourth match on the trot.
Young centre Jake Averillo was the star for the Dogs in the 18-16 nail-biter, blitzing his way to a couple of long-range tries which broke the game wide open for the visitors who were missing several injured top-liners, including Viliame Kikau, Josh Addo-Carr and Luke Thompson.
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He’s been tried in the halves and at fullback but centre could very well be his long-term spot and with blistering speed, it will be incumbent on Ciraldo to get him into space as much as possible because his pace was way too much for the Dragons to handle when he got clean air.
Hayze Perham is tackled in Wollongong. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
The strain is clearly starting to show on Griffin as the speculation over his coaching future intensifies. Off contract at season’s end, the club has shown no sign that he is any chance of being re-signed as officials scour the market for alternatives.
In the post-match press conference, the topic of Griffin’s shaky tenure was again raised and captain Ben Hunt, a staunch defender of his long-time mentor, said “it’s been raised since a ball was kicked this year
Griffin interjected to say: “I don’t think you need to get him to answer anything like that. He has answered that enough.”
The time has to arrive sooner rather than later for club management to make a call – it’s obvious that they won’t be extending Griffin’s three-year stint beyond this season so the only questions now seem to be whether he will see out the 2023 campaign and who will be the club’s next full-time coach from a crowded field of candidates including former Dragons stars Jason Ryles, Dean Young and Ben Hornby, or a more-experienced option like Shane Flanagan or Des Hasler.
Corey Waddell was the unlikely first try scorer and the Bulldogs forward did it in even less likely circumstances, dropping the ball onto his foot on the right edge and beating Tyrell Sloan in the in-goal race.
Jack Bird and Tevita Pangai jnr would have been $1.01 in the exotic markets to get into push and shove and it only took 10 minutes to occur when the fiery Dragon lifted the combustible Bulldog beyond the horizontal in a thumping tackle.
Pangai came up with a brain snap soon after with what Fox League analyst Cooper Cronk called a “horrendous” offload which Zac Lomax snapped up to streak away upfield before sending winger Max Feagai over in the left corner.
After the Bulldogs butchered a try when Reed Mahoney’s last pass to Matt Burton went astray, they went 10-4 up when Jake Averillo sprinted past Lomax and stood up Sloan with a high-octane in-and-away move from long range.
Sloan’s confidence could have been damaged further on the next set when he made a meal of a swirling Burton bomb but luckily for him, the Canterbury chasers were ruled offside.
St George Illawarra equalised seven minutes into the second half when rookie forward Toby Couchman touched down for the first time in the NRL after a Ben Hunt offload in traffic.
Averillo’s second 80-metre scorcher down the right flank made it 18-10 before Max Feagai reduced the gap to two while the Dogs were down to 12 when Waddell was binned.
“It’s terribly frustrating,” Griffin said of his team’s performance.
“They were very good and very committed, we had our chances. It’s frustrating, but we just weren’t good enough in key areas at vital times.”
Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo was thrilled with his team seizing the moments that mattered.
“We’ve been tough and we hang in there and we keep trying hard but we don’t go for the kill or go for the win at times and I thought we found a bit of that tonight. We found our identity a bit, on both sides of the ball, probably that’s what pleased me the most,” he said.
“No matter who’s playing, if you pull on a Bulldogs jersey there’s expectations there, standards we want you to live up to.
“At times we’ve dropped below those expectations and we’ve had some harsh conversations around that. After losing three games in a row, it was a tough week. We had an honest review to start the week.
“We never spoke about who wasn’t playing, it was more about who was playing.”
The double-edged sword which is the Josh Reynolds experience struck on the stroke of half-time.
Reynolds, who had been recalled to the starting side after Kyle Flanagan had been dropped, blew up at Grant Atkins after the siren sounded.
The referee was fuming over the disrespectful nature of the veteran five-eighth’s rant, telling him to not speak to him again for the rest of the game and warning Mahoney that if Reynolds failed to heed that warning, he’d be going to the sin bin.
“Go away. I’m not speaking to you for the rest of the game,” Atkins raged at Reynolds in no uncertain terms.
He was replaced eight minutes into the second half with 18-year-old debutant Karl Oloapu putting in a few eye-catching moments as Burton’s secondary playmaker to show that it won’t be long before he’s a regular in the starting side.
“I’m really happy for Karl that he got to experience a win, and a really special win at that,” Ciraldo said.
“I think he did pretty well tonight, and I am keen to keep exploring that with him. He is going to learn a lot out of tonight as well.”
Mahoney added about Reynolds: “We might have to have his mouth taped up when he plays. It’s just how he is. He’s the ultimate competitor and he wears his heart on his sleeve.”
Dogs winger Braidon Burns carried a knee injury through the game but Ciraldo was unsure whether he would need to miss more game time.
Waddell was marched to the sin bin midway through the second half for holding onto the ball too long when he was in a one-on-one strip contest with Lomax.
He had lost the ball after a long wrestle for possession and Atkins had sprinted back the other way and called out to Waddell that it was Lomax’s ball. But even though he clearly didn’t hear him, Atkins quickly raised 10 fingers to send him on his way.
“This is a huge call from the referee, I think he’s overcooked it, Grant Atkins, because there was conjecture on who had the ball and who didn’t,” Cronk said on Fox League commentary. “I can’t agree with 10 in the bin for that.”
The Dragons scored soon after when Max Feagai matched his twin’s effort from the first half.
In instances like this where the crowd noise is an issue, why can’t the ref blow their whistle to get the player’s attention, make the ruling and get on with the game like they do when there’s doubt over whether a tackled player is held or not.
Blow that whistle, ref. Blow that whistle.