Ex-winger who was ‘too slow, too big' now a key man up front for Dogs
Yet Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo was more impressed with the tough carries and 27 tackles Hughes delivered during his 30 minutes than his tryscoring heroics.
'I thought his start to the game was really good, and his second stint,' Ciraldo said.
'He scored two tries and everyone sees that, but the stuff he's doing that front-rowers have to do, I thought he was brilliant at that.'
Ciraldo said Hughes, who played all 25 games for Canterbury last season, was getting back to his best after undergoing ankle surgery earlier in the year.
'We missed him at the start of the year,' Ciraldo said. 'He had that syndesmosis injury and missed the first 12 weeks of the season. He was really good for us last year.
'He's just been building towards that. Last week it was hard to leave him out of the team … we wanted him to go back to NSW Cup and play big minutes. He went back and did that and totally deserved to come back into the team.'
After the Bulldogs were knocked out in the opening round of the play-offs last year, they are on track for a top-two finish this season, and Hughes is confident they can do some damage in the finals.
'We're a different style of team, I reckon,' he said.
'We're real fit. We base our game [on] defence. You don't get picked in the team unless your defence is pretty good. So, yeah, we're a real defensive team, and I think that's what we'll need in those games.'
It's a far cry from Hughes' debut season in 2023, when the Bulldogs won only seven games and finished third last.
'We got smashed [50-16] on my debut by the Bunnies on Anzac Day,' he recalled.
'That was one you don't want to really remember, but it was good, man. It was good to get out there [in the NRL].'
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Hughes and NSW Origin representative Max King have formed a reliable front-row pairing for the Bulldogs that will be bolstered next season by the recruitment of Kiwi international Leo Thompson from Newcastle on a four-year deal.
'It's great competition,' Hughes said of Thompson's arrival. 'That's what we want. We want to beef up our middle pack. So it's great competition, man. It just pushes you to get better.'
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