Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo has gone viral for an unfortunate slip of the tongue during a press conference ahead of his side’s game against the Cowboys on Friday night.
The Bulldogs suffered a 28-12 loss to the Cowboys at home at Accor Stadium, making it three defeats in a row since their impressive win over the Panthers last month.
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Speaking to reporters ahead of the game, Ciraldo was asked about his selection moves including dropping winger Marcelo Montoya and recalling Bailey Hayward to the starting line-up after Jake Turpin started at hooker last week.
“It’s been good,” Ciraldo said of the shuffling of the No. 9 jersey.
“Across the board everyone’s got something they need to work on and we’re all doing that.
“Last week we had a five-day turnaround from a pretty solid game against Parramatta and we were going up to Brisbane so that was the reason Bailey started from the bench.
“He’s been playing 80 minutes there, he’s done a tonne of work, on a short turnaround and he was carrying a couple of little n****** there. That’s why he moved back to the bench.”
After accidentally dropped the N-word, Ciraldo quickly corrected himself and clarified he meant Hayward was carrying “a couple of niggles”.
Watch Ciraldo’s slip up in the video above
“He’s (Hayward) done a lot of good work for us this year. The game against Canberra, he was really pivotal to us getting the result at the back end of the game.
“Then he was brilliant against Penrith as well. So Bailey’s doing a brilliant job and we’re really excited about how he’s going.”
The Bulldogs removed the unfortunate faux pas from the press conference video posted to the club’s website, but eagle-eyed fans shared the mistake on social media, with one clip getting 1.1 million views.
The Bulldogs sit 12th on the ladder with three wins from eight games and suddenly find themselves in a fight to get some victories on the board to stay in the race for finals.
Reed Mahoney, who was forced out of the Bulldogs last year and replaced by Hayward at hooker, certainly enjoyed the win in his “revenge game” against his old side — sharing the full-time score graphic posted by the Bulldogs to his Instagram story.
Mahoney had a game-high 57 tackles and two try assists against the Bulldogs.
“I would suspect, going back and playing there, means more to him than any other player this weekend,” Cowboys coach Todd Payten said ahead of Friday’s game.
“He might say publicly it doesn’t, but I know myself, I’ve been in that situation, it does. He’s super motivated.”
The Cowboys are up to sixth on the ladder with six wins in their past seven games.
Meanwhile there are growing calls for the Bulldogs to make a tweak to their spine such as moving Lachlan Galvin to five-eighth and Matt Burton to the centres and giving Sean O’Sullivan a run at halfback.
Moving superstar centre Stephen Crichton to fullback has also been floated as an option.
Ciraldo hinted changes could well be on the cards as the defeat reinforced question marks over his side’s attack and ability to score points.
Asked if changes needed to be made to the squad, Ciraldo said, “Possibly. We don’t have a lot of players either.
“Sean O’Sullivan came back to NSW Cup today. He was suspended for a couple of weeks and we’ve just lost Jake Turpin again. He looks like he’s torn his biceps.
“Changes might help and will definitely look at that but it’s not going to be the solution. We need to get everyone playing closer to their potential individually and that will help us as a team.
“But we’ve also got to stop having those moments in the last 20 minutes where we don’t stay present and we stop competing.”
Ciraldo also highlighted his team’s defensive efforts that allowed the Cowboys to score three tries in the last 15 minutes of the game.
“For 60 minutes that looked like our style of game. It wasn’t perfect but it was 12-all with 20 minutes left and we’re probably exactly where we wanted to be, where we prided ourselves on over the last couple of years,” Ciraldo said.
“There will be a lot of positives that we’ll look at from there but very disappointing the way we finished to let in three really soft tries.
“It’s not good enough but we’re in a bit of a spot at the moment where clearly we’re a bit low on confidence and we need to remember that there was a lot of good stuff in our first 60 minutes.
“We have to put the shovel down ourselves first because some of what we’re doing to ourselves, whether that’s just taking plays off and that third try to the Cowboys came through that.
“But if we put the shovel down ourselves, that might help.”
Ciraldo confirmed in his post-game press conference that Jake Turpin suffered a torn biceps for the Bulldogs, while Kurt Mann left the game and did not return after a head knock.
