Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo was grilled on recruit Lachlan Galvin’s ongoing role at the club after he came off the bench in their 8-6 loss to the Panthers on Thursday night.

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Some experts believe having Galvin on the bench has Bulldogs players like Toby Sexton, Reed Mahoney and even Matt Burton looking over their shoulder.

Galvin’s ongoing selection on the bench has the potential to upset the rhythm of the side’s attack, especially when multiple players change positions when he comes on the field.

However, Ciraldo was happy with how the rotation went when Galvin came on the field and sees no reason to change it, despite the loss to the defending premiers.

“I thought it worked pretty well tonight,” Ciraldo said.

“I like how it’s working at the moment. Reed rips in, he got his work done, worked himself to a standstill. Toby did a great job going in there and shoring up the ruck again and providing good service.

“And Lachy comes on and can sort of roll around and ask really good questions, which he did, so very happy with how it’s going at the moment. I don’t see any reason to change it.”

Ciraldo was pressed if he sees Galvin coming off the bench in the big end of season games in September when the finals roll around.

“A lot of things can happen before Round 27,” Ciraldo said.

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“You hope your whole squad’s healthy and all sorts of things. And the good thing is we’ve got good depth. We’ve got asking these questions and got headaches around selection.

“But I thought it worked really well tonight. I thought it worked really well the other week. So I don’t see any point in changing at the moment.”

The early concussion to Daniel Suluka-Fifita also upset the Bulldogs’ bench rotation, but Ciraldo was happy with how his team adapted.

“That sort of changed our rotation a little bit, but just sort of felt like there was so much fatigue in the game and Reed had done a lot of work in the middle,” Ciraldo said.

“Both times Toby’s gone there defensively he really does a great job defensively in the middle as well, so just thought with the fatigue in the game, really good opportunity to get Lachy on. “Then he was scheming around there and he’ll only get better playing off those guys as well, so I thought there were some good signs there for both guys.”

Ciraldo was hopeful Suluka-Fifita could play next week because he passed his test but was ruled out with a category one concussion.

“I think we’re going to look into it further about his availability for next week because he did have protective mechanism to come down and protect himself from falling straight down, but then he slipped on the way up,” Ciraldo said.

“It was just one of those things that happened. He came off past the test, but he’d already been ruled out of category one.

“So that was disappointing. And we’re doing the right thing by the players, but he passed the test and he was adamant he was fine to go back on, so we’ll definitely be looking into that this week.”

Bulldogs skipper Stephen Crichton was pressed on former teammate Brian To’o’s high tackle, but wouldn’t be drawn on his mate being potentially rubbed out of Origin III.

“I wouldn’t know, brother. I wouldn’t know,” Crichton said.

“I was too busy talking to the boys. We’re all going to do the next play, but I didn’t see the tackle.”

Ciraldo believes To’o has nothing to worry about, but backed Jacob Kiraz to step up if needed.

“Firstly, I don’t think Brian’s got too much to worry about,” Ciraldo said.

“It wasn’t much in it, so he should be right. But if Jacob got an opportunity, he’s not going to let anyone down.

“He’s been one of the four wingers of the comp. He was brilliant again tonight, so there’s a lot of opportunities there.”

Ciraldo revealed the reasoning behind switching his wingers was to ensure they both could play both sides if needed later in the year.

“We just want them to be able to both play on both sides,” Ciraldo said.

“Kiraz has done that over time and I want to see how Marcello went on the right. We had just been thinking about it for a while, but because we had the bye it was a good time to be able to have two weeks to work on it.

“It’s something that we’ve been working towards, so it was a good chance over the bye just to have a look at what it looked like and I thought it worked well tonight.”

Crichton believes the winger switch didn’t upset the team.

“Not much. The system stays the same,” Crichton said.

“It’s basically just jumping on the other side of the field as long as the boys get their reps.

“And I feel like we trained really well this week leading into the game, so there’s a lot of lessons there that we can take out.

“And like Coach said, there’s like a semi-final game, so there’s a lot that we can take out of it.

“I feel like there was a lot of good signs there, first half and second half, and a lot of lessons that we can take out.

“Things that we can control, our plays, the error rate. I feel like we had too many errors there and I was a victim of a few of them there at the end there.

“And you get your chances again, but those are all lessons that we can take into next week to become a better footy team.”

Despite the loss, Ciraldo was happy with where his side is at after pushing the defending premiers all the way.

“I thought we were great. I thought we played great,” Ciraldo said.

“We came up against a great team who did enough to win. It was a tough start there. We lost Daniel straight away.

“He actually passed his test but because it was a category one, that sort of made it hard from the start, but I thought Harry Hayes comes on there and plays 40 minutes straight.

“We just did so many things great tonight but ultimately not enough to win. But there’s enough lessons there for us moving forward that hopefully bigger games at the end of the year we can use those lessons to become a better footy team.

“But I was so proud of them. Prepared great, performed great but plenty of lessons.”

Ciraldo backed the call not to go for a penalty goal that could have forced golden point.

“It was just so far out,” Ciraldo said.

“It was just a big shot there. Both left foot kickers, wrong side there. It was me that was keen to see us keep playing.

“I thought we were creating enough opportunities there to win the game, not just draw it up. That’s all right. We actually did create an opportunity there, just didn’t ice it.”

Ciraldo called on his players to show more composure and play the long game.

“Second half in particular we were just trying to score off every play from our own end and made four or five errors there and just put ourselves under field position pressure,” Ciraldo said.

“We were really brave to keep defending that. But you just can’t do that to a team like Penrith, they will suffocate you.

“That’s what happened in the second half, we were starved of field position and that ended up resulting in a charge down try. So too many errors there.

“Just trying to score off every play from our own end. We just got to be better there and play a bit more field position game at times.”

Ciraldo was impressed with his side’s scramble defence and ability to work hard for each other.

“I think both teams scrambled great,” Ciraldo said.

“I think both teams asked good questions, created half opportunities, but both teams scrambled really well. I think the intensity was there like a finals game in terms of ball in play and total amount of plays.

“And plays like those scramble plays are what wins big games, so plenty of lessons there. Come back bigger and better.

“I thought defended great on everyone, not so much Nathan in particular, obviously he’s a big key to what they’re doing, but so is Isaah,” Ciraldo said.

“And a couple of Connor Tracey’s try savers, it’s just what epitomises the performance tonight and why I’m so proud of him.”

Despite the narrow loss against one of their main rivals for the title, Ciraldo is confident his team is closing the gap every time they play Penrith.

“I thought Penrith were great tonight, so it gave us a real finals type intensity game against a team that’s won the last four comps,” Ciraldo said.

“So for our guys, we’ve played them three times in the last three years. We got pumped first year. Last year we showed some good signs that we could hang in there a bit longer.

And tonight we went toe to toe for 80 minutes.

“Got a couple of chances there at the end, but just weren’t good enough to ice them, so I’m very happy with where we’re at, but we need to keep improving.”