‘The commentary around him is ridiculous': Cameron Ciraldo hits back at coverage of Lachlan Galvin since his arrival at Bulldogs

News.com.au

2 days ago

Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo has blasted the 'ridiculous' commentary of mid-season recruit Lachlan Galvin and has quashed any notion that the club has had to move players around to accommodate the young gun.
Galvin's abrupt move from the Wests Tigers and his four games with the Bulldogs has been one of the biggest stories of 2025, with the playmaker's form becoming a hot topic on traditional and social media.
Ciraldo is the first to admit that Galvin could have been better in his second start at five-eighth last week when the Bulldogs blew an 18-0 lead against the Broncos, but he also feels the intense scrutiny that's followed has been over the top and may have to do with certain agendas in the game.
'That's a great question, but it's hard to answer that because I don't know the thoughts behind that,' he replied when asked if he thought Galvin had been a victim of circumstance.
'Some of the commentary around him is ridiculous.
'He's a 19-year-old kid who has changed clubs mid-year and has come here looking to improve his football.
'Our job internally is to help him through that process, guide him and protect him. He's doing a great job turning up and trying to get better each day.
'I don't know why there's so much attention on him or why it comes to that because we had a number of players last week who didn't play the way they wanted to play, and unfortunately Lachie was in the headlines for a lot of that.
'But he did a lot of things well, he'll learn a lot of things out of that game and he'll come back bigger and stronger.'
Galvin will drop back to the bench this weekend if all of the Origin stars back up against the Cowboys in Townsville where they'll be on high alert for Tom Dearden, who claimed the Wally Lewis Medal.
Galvin will likely come on midway through the second half, with Toby Sexton shifting to hooker to replace Reed Mahoney, based on how he's been used in the past.
Ciraldo stressed that players weren't being moved to fit Galvin in – Sexton and Mahoney will both leave the club at the end of the season – and praised the teenager for how he'd handled a turbulent few months on and off the field that included him scoring a try on his club debut.
'One thing that I really liked about him and admired him for before he agreed to come to us was how he handled himself through that period a couple of months ago,' Ciraldo said.
'There was a lot of attention on him, but every week that he came and played footy, he put that to the side and played with freedom and the competitiveness you want from players like that.
'It's hard for us to hear all that noise because we're not watching all that stuff. We're educating them to stay away from it as well, so we're trying to get our boys off their phones and watching reality TV shows.
'We keep reinforcing that their reference points are their performances in these four walls. Hopefully, they're listening.
'I thought he did a good job coming off the bench a couple of times there, and he's also done a really good job when he's started games.
'There were a few errors that I'd like to take back last week, but they're learnings for him as well. And while they were pressure passes, a couple of them should have been caught.
'He's learning every day, he's putting in the hard work and he's the first one here and the last to leave. When you do that, good things are going to happen.'
Meanwhile, Ciraldo has praised winger Marcelo Montoya, who delayed neck surgery to ensure the team wouldn't lose too many players during Origin.
'He's been struggling with that neck for a while now,' he said, with Montoya expected to be back in time for the finals.
'It was an incredibly tough effort to keep playing through with that over the last few weeks, especially this Origin period.
'He probably could have had surgery a couple of weeks ago, but he chose to delay it a little bit to help the team through that Origin period when we were missing a number of players.'