Cameron Ciraldo doesn’t expect his skipper Stephen Crichton to be suspended for a high tackle on Taylan May in the Bulldogs’ upset 28-14 loss to the Tigers.
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In the 64th minute Crichton went for a low tackle on May, that saw him slip just before contact and collide with the Bulldogs skipper’s shoulder.
May was ruled out of the remainder of the contest with a category one concussion, but Crichton was not sin-binned, but will be sweating on the match review committee.
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Crichton knew there was an issue with the tackle in terms of it being worthy of a penalty, but was unsure if it would result in a suspension.
“He was kind of coming and I tried to go as low as I could and he kind of slipped into it and I kind of felt it straightaway too,” Crichton said.
“I kind of knew that I was in trouble, but that’s probably just on my tackle technique as well in this wet weather.”
Crichton was pressed on whether a ban was looming before Ciraldo interjected.
“I’m not sure, brother,” Crichton said.
“No, please,” Ciraldo added.
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The game was branded the Galvin Cup with Bulldogs halfback Lachlan Galvin coming up against his old side, but it was a tough day for the No.7 and his new team.
Ciraldo conceded the Tigers beat them at their own game a week after the the Bulldogs did the same thing to the Sea Eagles in a 42-4 rout.
“Credit to them firstly, I thought they were really good today,” Ciraldo said.
“Really committed, really energetic and beat us in those two areas convincingly.
“I don’t know if they wanted it more, but they were clearly more desperate than us.
“They won the play-the-ball by like half a second, willing to fight harder. Back to the old run, hard, tackle harder. They did all that.
“They looked really connected, really energetic, so credit to them, but we missed the mark, particularly around our mindset today.”
Luai stands over Galvin in HEATED moment | 00:28
Despite the convincing defeat, Ciraldo believes it would be unfair to put it on Galvin or Matt Burton with heir pack soundly beaten by the Tigers up front.
“It’s not a great conditions for a halfback when you’re behind a beaten forward pack, so I thought he tried hard, but I don’t think any halves are going to do that well playing off half a second slower play-the-ball,” Ciraldo said.
Galvin was booed by the Tigers faithful at CommBank Stadium, but Ciraldo denied it put him off his game.
“He’s good, nothing much flusters him,” Ciraldo said.
Galvin walks out to sea of boos | 00:58
“I thought he went out there, he did his job today. I don’t think it rattled him that much, but I just suggest we got beaten as a team.”
Crichton showed support for Galvin, who toiled hard behind a well beaten pack.
“I feel like he did pretty well,” Crichton said.
“He knew what kind of hostile environment we were coming into. Obviously, when you play against your old team, they’re going to give it to you and I felt like he played his game, but with the conditions, we definitely didn’t help him with the amount of errors that we had and the amount of defending that we had to do as well.
“It’s always going to be hard when we’re defending most of the time, but that’s probably just an attitude change into the amount of errors that we had in that first half. They put us on the back foot in the first place.”
