'Fail your way to victory' Finals pain driving Bulldogs higher

Fail your way to victory!

That’s the motto Canterbury players have adopted after making the top eight for the first time in eight years in 2024 and finishing in the top four last year but being eliminated without winning a finals match on both occasions.

As they approach the season opening match against St George Illawarra at Allegiant Stadium, the Bulldogs are still stinging from the pain of last year’s 46-26 elimination by the Panthers after finishing the season in third place and leading the premiership for the first 12 rounds.

The week before they lost 26-18 to the Storm in the first round of play-offs and in 2024, the Bulldogs were run down by the Sea Eagles in a sudden death final after finishing sixth.

The finals failures were the subject of a review when the players returned to pre-season training and according to veteran utility the discussions were honest and positive, with Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo letting them know it is okay to fail as long they learn from it.

“We always talk about failing our way to victory,” Maroons Origin utility Kurt Mann said. “It is a bit of a saying that Ciro has.

“On our walls it says it is a safe place to fail because if you never fail, are you really trying to win games. We came up short but it’s not a major fix and we are not far off.

“We are still going to be working hard and playing the same style of footy, we have just got a few things we need to work on when it comes to the moments in the big games.

“There is definitely a lot of room for improvement for us when it comes to finals games, but you are never going to improve unless you fail.”

Forward Josh Curran said the review had been “pretty deep” and still bristles when last year’s finals series is bought up.

Curran had watched the Broncos win the grand final against the Stom with five-eighth Matt Burton, but he admits it had been difficult viewing.

“I was actually at Burto’s house watching it and I said, ‘man, this is so shit’, but everything happens for a reason and it was a massive learning curve,” Curran said.

“Last season didn’t go our way it will make us better this year. As much as we wanted to play in the grand final, unfortunately we didn’t and we reflected on that and how we have got a job to do this year.

“Obviously it’s not the way we wanted it to go – going out in straight sets. We spoke about it the first week we got back in pre-season, and we were just honest with each other.

“We had a chat about what went wrong and what we could fix. To be fair, we got pretty deep and I think that is the major factor that is driving us in this season. We know where we want to get to this year.”

Kangaroo tourist Jacob Preston revealed that the Canterbury players had watched the loss to the Panthers when they returned to pre-season training.

“It was very uncomfortable. That day we got blown off the park, and it’s not something we pride ourselves on. We took a lot from that,” Preston said.

“All the boys were disappointed with how we ended last year. Going out in straight sets in the finals isn’t what anyone wants to do. We’ve learnt from that and we’re focusing on coming out this week showing what we’ve learnt.

“We started the year red-hot then fell off towards the end there. We learnt a lot from that, we had a big pre-season, we learnt some lessons from last year that we worked on in the pre-season and we’re looking forward to showing that work.”