The Moneyball moves and ‘hundreds of calls’ behind Ciraldo’s Dogs revolution

Ask Cameron Ciraldo about everything taking place at his Bulldogs right now, and he’ll walk you from one room to the next here inside Belmore HQ where, over and over, that same phrase is continually writ large.

“Yeah, all over our walls,” he says, pointing up to yet another of those creeds which, painted in Canterbury-Bankstown blue, screams Club First, Team Second, Individual Third.

A mantra too, the coach stresses, “passed down over time” within these walls and now something “we focus on every day”.

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Yet know this Bulldogs revolution, it’s about more too.

Has to be.

Understanding even last year, as Ciraldo sat high in that Olympic Park grandstand, Homebush, watching his side get its arse handed back by Newcastle – final score, 66-blot — said phrase was already on the walls, right?

Already ingrained too, or as best as it could be, in a team whose disastrous 2023 campaign saw them branded the NRL’s worst defenders and plenty more – thanks, specifically, to those backpage headlines involving the likes of Andrew Davey, Tevita Pangai Jnr, even Jackson Topine’s ongoing $4 million lawsuit.

Yet that embarrassment against the Knights, it was the day on which everything changed.

“A dark day,” is how Ciraldo remembers it now, before quickly adding how it also “magnified everything we needed to sort out”.

Kicked back this particular Thursday in a chair once held by the likes of Warren Ryan, Phil Gould, even the late, great Steve Folkes, Ciraldo is talking through what is quickly becoming the latest incarnation of famed Mark Antony phrase, The Dogs of War.

Especially when recalling how only nine months ago, Ciraldo’s debut coaching season finished with his Bulldogs not only busted, or languishing third last, but with a defence leaking like a group of player agents on the sauce.

Conceding, on average, 32 points per game, Canterbury were the NRL’s worst defensive team.

Daylight second.

All of which also came piled atop rumours of player unrest, excessive punishments and enough moaning to eventually see Dogs great Willie Mason brand the dissenters “f***ing soft as s***”.

Yet now as we round halfway point of 2024?

Well, Ciraldo’s side is not only shocking the critics, or sitting on par with the top eight, but defending with all the vigour of Johnny Cochrane holding that black glove high while shouting “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”.

A truth proved as recently as seven days back when, against those same Knights who piled on 100 points in two games last year, Canterbury went and earned a huge away upset, 32-2.

Which apart from continuing the greatest resurrection seen on TV since Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow, also had one journalist quizzing Ciraldo afterwards on exactly where his defensive system has changed?

After all, when ‘Cirro’ arrived at Belmore HQ in the pre-season of ‘23, he carried with him a famed defensive structure that had taken Penrith to three grand finals and consecutive NRL titles.

A system that, overnight however, and when coloured white and blue, would suddenly look uglier than sandals with socks.

So again they asked after last week’s Friday Night Football upset, what’s changed?

“No change,” Ciraldo replied in that signature drawl which exuded not only clarity, but a brevity suggesting he expects to be charged $2 per word.

“It’s the exact same system we had when Newcastle pumped us twice last year.

“What’s changed is the culture.”

Which is the nicest way possible of saying the following: We f***ed off blokes who can’t follow the system and signed up men who can.

Each of whom, of course, have incredible stories on their own.

Take, say, new centre Bronson Xerri being tattooed as heavily by a 2020 drug conviction as he is neck ink. Or Jaemon Salmon, who no less than Ricky Stuart once branded a “weak-gutted dog”.

Josh Curran?

He missed two games last year over a bar brawl, while signing Kurt Mann saw The Kennel’s online forum melt with claims of him being too old, 20kg light and along with other recruits like Connor Tracey, Blake Taffe and Drew Hutchison “one of 15 utilities we now have … embarrassing”.

Which is why rather than simply focusing on Ciraldo’s walls, we want to tell you about how his right leg aches on cold mornings.

And for reasons no one can explain, after having a few beers.

Same as you need to know how his wonderful grandmother Vilda, she never owned a car.

Which is how Ciraldo came to spend so many mornings as a young boy – aged three, maybe four – shadowing nan through the streets of Belmore as, together, they headed for her next shift at Canterbury RSL.

A lollipop always jutting from one corner of his mouth too because, well, that wonderful lady who owned the corner store always had one waiting whenever they passed by.

“A conversion around every bend,” is how coach remembers it.

And why every week now, his players are urged up into that same main drag for breakfast, lunch, whatever, doesn’t matter, just communicate, connect, and learn to “look, think and act like a Bulldog”.

Same deal with Canterbury’s defence.

Indeed, only nine months after finishing his debut season with the worst defensive record of any NRL side, Ciraldo’s Bulldogs are suddenly tackling, scrambling, repelling better than every team not named Penrith.

Incredibly, and according to the Fox Sports Lab, the Dogs are conceding only 16 points, on average, per game – or just one more than the reigning premiers – while also sitting equal first with the mountain when it comes to tries conceded (2.6).

“Total commitment to the system,” is how Ciraldo explains his side having not simply reduced the number of points they must chase per game, but halved them.

Same as when it comes to conceding more than 20 points per outing, the Bulldogs also have just five against their name – and again, are on track to halve their 19 from last year.

“But any defensive system will work when you have total commitment,” Ciraldo continues of the staggering turnaround.

“We just had to keep banking reps with people who were going to commit.”

While Ciraldo may be unwilling to replough old ground, it’s no secret the 39-year-old was only weeks into life as an NRL coach last year when his signature defensive system had not so much concerned certain players as lost them completely.

While some quietly bemoaned Ciraldo’s training demands, others — including a couple of fellas who know what it is to bounce between clubs — spoke loudly, and often, about how at their old joint, or maybe the one before that, nobody had ever worked them like this.

Which for Ciraldo, has always been the whole bloody point.

Indeed, if you want to understand what really makes this bloke tick, go find the YouTube clip of him carting a ball for Newcastle in ‘09, against Cronulla.

Back when the then backrower’s leg breaks so badly in four places, it will require surgery, plus a steel rod, and even today mysteriously aches after three schooners.

Here was an injury so bad that, afterwards, in the Shark Park sheds, the ankle alone took 15 minutes to reset.

Which didn’t so much destroy as define the career of this workaholic Sydneysider who, across nine years, saw him cut twice, average 10 games annually and continually punch from one 12 month deal to the next.

So you want to know why Ciraldo understands the value of hard conversations and harder work?

He spent an entire career living both.

Which is why last winter, even as the losses and complaints piled up, he kept faith in a system being questioned externally, internally, everywhere.

“Because,” he says, “on big stages and under pressure, I’d already seen it work.”

Again, he just had to find the right men to administer it.

Which isn’t dissimilar to everything Brad Pitt epitomised when, in Moneyball, he played famed Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane.

Although forget ballplayers who get on base.

Ciraldo needed mobile men who tackle.

Or more specifically thwack, scrap, scramble, wrangle, fight, toil, endure, and buy in exactly like, say, his ‘ol mate ‘Waltzing’ Matt Hilder.

Remember him?

Ciraldo certainly does.

Explaining how some 10 years since sharing a defensive line with the now Novocastrian plumber, he still remembers how comfortable it felt alongside a fella who gave far more than that greatest of nicknames.

Same as Ciraldo can still feel the confidence of defending alongside Chris Beattie at Cronulla.

Or the ache of an Ogre hit.

Which is why Mark O’Meley, just like Big Willie, Josh Jackson, even Andrew ‘Bobcat’ Ryan, are all now found, at various times, inside this same HQ where Ciraldo has personally studied every player signed.

So if not getting on base, what’s the one thing uniting the likes of Xerri, Tracey, Curran and co.?

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“The traits we required,” Ciraldo starts, “they were less tangible.

“We needed to find people who love footy and have a team first mentality.

“A lot of the guys we brought in were good players from successful clubs.

“Guys who already understood what winning looked like, they just needed an opportunity to play more games, or even more minutes.

“But the main trait we were looking for was men with strong character.

“Men who were willing to work hard, work together and trust in our process.”

Which is itself no easy task, and one that involved Ciraldo, before meeting with each player — and often more than once — making hundreds of calls to trusted confidantes who could take him far deeper than perception or backpage headlines.

Which, you should know, saw some potential signings wind up with red lines through their names.

But still, coach got the men around whom, he insists, this yarn should be built.

Elsewhere, and already, it’s been noted how Ciraldo’s signing of smaller, more agile forwards – remember those headlines about too many utilities? – also lends to a theory of him playing ‘small ball’.

That NBA phenomenon where, in simplest terms, a coach sacrifices height for speed, agility, and, often, an increased propensity for scoring ‘threes’.

So what chance such thinking was behind his signings?

“Part of our recruitment was about availability, and what we want defensively,” the coach explains. “But yes, we’re after a fast-moving agile team and a guy like, say, Kurt Mann fits that.”

At which point Ciraldo stresses the Bulldogs recruitment strategy won’t always resemble the model they have now, same as he also went to market for, and secured, a bone fide star in NSW Origin centre Stephen Crichton.

Still, while Canterbury now boast the likes of Matt Burton, Reed Mahoney, Viliame Kikau and Josh Addo-Carr, the story of 2024 is as much about a fella like Jacob Preston, last start, chasing, diving and impossibly pushing Knights winger Greg Marzhew into touch to save a try.

Quizzed on NRL defences generally and Ciraldo explains how having an entire team connected across the park, and moving in sync, isn’t only extremely difficult to create, but a dance that is easily lost.

“But when it works,” he says, “it’s beautiful”.

Which is why, every week, these Bulldogs are reminded how that beauty, it must be earned in the ugliest of ways.

“Which isn’t easy,” Ciraldo continues, referencing a defensive regimen also questioned during its first winter at Penrith, albeit by players gone when the NRL premiership was hoisted a season later.

Same as they are no longer inside Canterbury HQ.

Importantly, Ciraldo also has his own strong backgrounding in Bulldogs DNA.

One born not only from nan’s walks through the Belmore suburb she called home, or having a school teaching dad also based in the area, but from being schooled himself in Moorebank – which meant playing on Belmore Oval by Year 3.

“And sitting alongside Darren Smith before my first game,” he says, smile broadening at the memory of a Bulldogs great all heart, headgear and almost 200 appearances for the Belmore club.

“And when that’s the first player you ever see live, it leaves a mark on you”.

Just as these Bulldogs are now looking to leave their own mark in 2024.

Asked the key to that connectivity now being displayed in Canterbury’s defence and Ciraldo replies: “First and foremost, it’s being totally committed to your system.

“Then, you also need good communicators.

“Guys who are willing to work hard for their teammates.

“And, no, it’s never perfect.

“But when you have guys willing to work hard, willing to save their mates ass if they make a mistake, defence becomes beautiful to watch.”

Then after a pause, he continues: “But again, you have to earn it every week.

“Every game you have to turn up with that mentality, and that isn’t easy.”

Around which time, it’s suddenly realised our interview has now travelled well over the agreed 30 minutes – and down the type of wormholes that are tackling systems, the rushing Roosters of ‘02, plus Travis Burns, Danny Nutley and so many others whose competitiveness ‘Cirro’ loved.

But as for calling time?

“Nah, we’re still talking defence,” the coach grins. “So it’s OK.

“But the moment you turn this interview to attack, yeah, that’s where we’ll have to end it”.