Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo has opened up on his working relationship with Phil Gould and how the pair plan to turn the club into premiership contenders once again.
The Bulldogs have not tasted premiership success in two decades with their last title coming in 2004, while their last two grand finals were in 2012 and 2014.
Ciraldo revealed Gould has a big focus on a long-term strategy for the club, which allows him to focus on getting the best out of the players he has right now.
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“Gus has been really good and I have had 10 or 11 years with Gus now so it is familiar for me,” Ciraldo said on NRL 360.
“I know how he works and he knows how I work and that’s been a really good thing for stability as well.
“Having Gus there he allows me to just focus on the coaching of the team and the individuals and running that football program.
“I don’t have to worry too much about pathways or recruitment and retention and salary caps. He is across a lot of that stuff and gives me a great hand with all that.”
Ciraldo explained Gould’s work ethic is what makes him so valuable and he available for the rookie coach to lean on in multiple capacities.
“Well he doesn’t sleep so he has got 24 hours a day to work,” Ciraldo joked.
“He has a lot of contacts and spends a lot of time and he knows what he is looking for.
“He gets a lot of things organised that I wouldn’t be able to do.
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“To have him there as a sounding board for footy as well and just the way to set up a club has been really good.”
Gould has been charged with building a strong pathways system and working in recruitment and retention to implement a long-term strategy for success.
“He says it all the time, our job is to worry about the day to day running of the football program,” Ciraldo said.
“His job is to think of what it looks like in two years, five years, 10 years time.
“He is doing a really good job with that. He has a lot of good people around him in Peter Sharp and Adam Hartigan who are helping him set up those processes.
“The club is going to be in good shape and that is all happening underneath us right now.”
Ciraldo admits the challenges of becoming a full-time NRL head coach are very different to his former role as assistant at the Panthers.
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“I’ve loved it, it has been a different challenge, but I’ve really enjoyed it,” Ciraldo said.
“The Bulldogs are a great club full of great people and the community is great, so I’ve really enjoyed it so far.
“Obviously I would like a few more wins, but it is what it is at the moment and I’m happy with how it is going.
“It has been an adjustment, it is completely different to assistant coaching, but some things overlap.
“I’m really lucky I have good people around me. I have a really good coaching staff and football staff in general and good people throughout the club.
“That has helped me navigate my way through that at different times.
“I have a really good playing group too full of good leaders and that has been a big help as well.
“It has been an adjustment and I have had to manage different distractions along the way and not get caught up in things to make sure we are still doing the football stuff, which is the main thing.”
Ciraldo was the most sought after coach in waiting in the game and he revealed it took him a long time to feel that the Bulldogs was the right move for him, before inking a five-year deal.
“It just felt right,” Ciraldo said.
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“It took a long time to feel right. I had a pretty strong connection to the area. My Nan grew up there and her house was there.
“I spent a fair bit of time growing up there. I went to school in the area. I had a lot of friends who played for the Bulldogs.
“I felt like I understood what the club was built on and what it stood for and at the end of the day the longer I thought about it the more it felt right.”
Ciraldo’s first order of business was to make sure the players and staff understood the history of the proud club and to instil the grit back in the Bulldogs.
“When they actually went from the Berries to the Bulldogs, the Bulldog was a sign of determination and grit,” Ciraldo said.
“We have spoken about that a lot. We looked at all that history when we started and spoke about it.
“We have tried to instil that over the pre-season and the boys have really bought into that. and I think you see a difference in grittiness in how we approach each week.
“Things haven’t gone right for us along the way, but I’m really proud of how they stay in games and how gritty they are. It has been a real welcome surprise.”
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The Bulldogs currently sit 15th on the ladder and still have a long way to go to be contenders again and Ciraldo revealed his plan to focus on what the team has now before reshaping his roster for the future.
“It is a tough one, I don’t want to put a timeline on it (being contenders) because I haven’t even seen our full roster play together yet, so it is a hard one to answer that with a timeline,” Ciraldo said.
“But when we get better at doing the basics well and stick to the process and play for 80 minutes then we will start to get a gauge of how long it is going to take.
“We are adding Stephen Crichton next year and we still have money in the cap to chase quality players if they become available.
“But we are not going to rush into the market. The guys that are there at the moment have got a really good opportunity to show us what they can do and some of them are really putting their hand up.
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“A young guy like Jacob Preston has been outstanding for us. He came to us for an opportunity and he has taken that opportunity with both hands and he looks like being a long-term Bulldog.”
However, Ciraldo admits that later in the season, attention will turn to fixing any weaknesses in the Bulldogs squad through recruitment.
“There is conversations all the time, but I myself haven’t spent too much time on that,” Ciraldo said.
“I’ve wanted to really knuckle down on just spending time with the players and understanding what makes them tick and just getting a real sense of what sort of quality we have got in the club right now.
“This is a really strong roster in my opinion and I want to see them make the most of their opportunities right now.
“I have spent most of my time doing that, but as we start to go longer in the season those conversations will come up.”
