‘That’s amateurish’: Bulldogs coach fumes at Tevita Pangai Jr.’s kickoff offload blunder

Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo take aim at one of his own stars after a Tevita Pangai Jr. was the tip of the iceberg against the Broncos.

Cameron Ciraldo and Tevita Pangai Jr.

Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo slammed Tevita Pangai Jr for trying an offload off the kick-off in a play that led directly to a Broncos try in their 44-24 loss at Belmore.

The Bulldogs had just scored through Jake Averillo to make it 12-12, before Pangai Jr’s offload led to a mistake by Blake Wilson and the Broncos pounced.

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“That’s amateurish,” Ciraldo said in his press conference.

“Tries from dummyhalf. Silly offloads like that. It just makes it real hard to win games when you are doing that.

“Especially the position we are in at the moment, we need to play percentage plays and play the game down the other end. That was just amateurish.”

Ciraldo was also fuming at his side for letting in a barge over try to Xavier Willison three minutes after halftime when the score was 22-18 to the Broncos.

“Every try hurts me, but they hurt me more,” Ciraldo said.

“You can’t give up that many points in a game. It is just amateurish.”

Cameron Ciraldo and Tevita Pangai Jr.

The Bulldogs lost halfback Toby Sexton after a tackle form Selwyn Cobbo that saw him sin-binned and placed on report, but Ciraldo wasn’t using it as an excuse and was more disappointed with their defence.

“We lost Toby Sexton and we lost Braidon Burns, so that is not ideal,” Ciraldo said.

“We had guys on the field out of position and that’s one part of the story.

“But the other part of the story is we let in 22 points in the first half.

“If we had of defended well in the first half and then those things happened in the second half I can understand those things playing against you.

“But to let in 22 points in the first half I don’t want to talk about those things.

“When Toby went off we lost that direction, but that doesn’t make up for the defensive issues that we had.

“We still had Kyle Flanagan there on the bench who has played a number of games at halfback and we should have done better.”

Ciraldo was upset his side couldn’t do more for retiring champion Josh Reynolds on an emotional day for the club at Belmore.

“It was set up to be a really good day,” Ciraldo said.

“Everyone loves playing at Belmore. You can feel the buzz around the town and our players love playing here.

“But that’s disappointing to finish the day like that. There was a lot of emotion around the boys wanting to put on a real good performance for Grub (Reynolds), so really sad we couldn’t do that.”

Originally published as ‘That’s amateurish’: Bulldogs coach fumes at Tevita Pangai Jr.’s kickoff offload blunder