{"id":369757,"date":"2024-02-22T01:02:26","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T02:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369757"},"modified":"2024-02-22T03:03:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T03:03:26","slug":"bulldogs-coach-axes-captains-two-weeks-before-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369757","title":{"rendered":"Bulldogs coach axes captains two weeks before season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>C\ufeffameron Ciraldo has dropped a bombshell on the eve of the NRL season, with new recruit Stephen Crichton taking over as Bulldogs captain.<\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old is a three-time premiership winner with Penrith, but only joined Canterbury in the past couple of months, signing a multi-year deal with the club.<\/p>\n<p>Crichton is yet to play a game for the Dogs, with his first hit-out in the blue and white slated for the second trial against the Sharks on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/nrl\/news-2024-adam-reynolds-brisbane-broncos-contract-extension\/f305b168-3463-4054-9ae2-6860cc86b45a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Reynolds accepts pay cut in new Broncos deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/tennis\/news-2024-ivo-karlovic-retires-lleyton-hewitt-wimbledon-2003\/1c0f2d75-ec9a-4dfc-8fd1-2fa074ce42b3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Giant who stunned Hewitt retires 21 years later<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/nrl\/top-50-players-2024-20-11-revealed\/6d17d9fb-753e-4e79-aece-aa615b8dffbc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Origin captains, Dally M gun snubbed for top 10 honour<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Despite only arriving in the pre-season, Ciraldo has seen enough leadership qualities from the Samoan international to name his as the new skipper, dumping last year&#x27;s duo of Reed Mahoney and Matt Burton from the role.<\/p>\n<p>\ufeff&quot;Stephen is a really good reader of energy,&quot; the coach said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"c9d4c160-2829-46eb-8eae-e39f0d0bbbfd\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/c9d4c160-2829-46eb-8eae-e39f0d0bbbfd\" alt=\"\" data-width=\"1920\" data-height=\"1080\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;He understands when people are a little bit flat, low on energy, and when it&#x27;s a bit quiet, and he can change the mood in an instant.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Sometimes that&#x27;s with some annoying music or sounds, or loud noises that he comes up with but he&#x27;s great at bringing people together. He really understands bringing positive energy to the group and he&#x27;s been such a valuable asset to us this pre-season.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Ciraldo thanked 2022 recruits Burton and Mahoney for their contributions in the role last year, \ufeffpraising their &quot;professionalism and commitment&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Crichton &#8211; who has exactly 100 first grade appearances to his name &#8211; expressed his gratitude and \ufeffbelief in the Bulldogs, who haven&#x27;t won a premiership in two decades and have missed the finals ever year since 2016.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I just want to lead with my actions,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve been at a successful club and I&#x27;ve seen what good leaders look like and I&#x27;ve learnt a lot from the older boys that I was with and I&#x27;ve taken a few things from each person that I can implement in my life on and off the field, as well as in being a leader.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s a community club, it&#x27;s a family club. They really do care about their fans. I see it as hard-working, proper Dogs. Hungry. I look at the past players &#8211; Sonny Bill [Williams], Willie Mason, James Graham, players like that. They just did it without hesitation.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;They were just hard Dogs. That&#x27;s what I see the club as and that&#x27;s what Ciro is trying to build here: You put the team first, you go out there and you play your heart out.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The superstar centre will lead Canterbury for the first time on Friday evening when they take on a strong Cronulla outfit at Belmore Oval. \ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>C\ufeffameron Ciraldo has dropped a bombshell on the eve of the NRL season, with new recruit Stephen Crichton taking over as Bulldogs captain. The 23-year-old <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369757\" title=\"Bulldogs coach axes captains two weeks before season\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=369757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369759,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369757\/revisions\/369759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/369317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}