Handing one to a rookie who has nine NRL fill-in matches under his belt is a massive gamble.
Canterbury ended whatever lingering doubt was left on Sunday by finally announcing Cameron Ciraldo would take the helm from 2023 onwards on a five-year deal.
Even Des Hasler, a Manly legend who won two premierships as a player and a couple more as coach as he closes in on 500 games, is on an incentive-based three-year contract.
The original “super coach”, Jack Gibson, never stayed longer than three years in a stint at a club because he was convinced players stopped listening to the same voice over and over.
Ciraldo will continue assisting Ivan Cleary at the Panthers until the end of this season before kicking off pre-season training at the Bulldogs in November.
Cameron Ciraldo. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
The 37-year-old former Sharks, Knights and Panthers second-rower will have a few familiar faces when he lobs at Belmore in the form of five-eighth Matt Burton, incoming star recruit Viliame Kikau and general manager Phil Gould, who was running the show at Penrith when Ciraldo played his last couple of seasons and during the first few years of his coaching apprenticeship.
Gould was famously known for a five-year plan to rebuild the club which continued well beyond that term and he’s made a similar investment in Ciraldo, who had recently knocked back an approach from the Wests Tigers for a similar timeframe.
The decision to give Ciraldo such a lengthy deal for his first head coaching assignment could prove to be a masterstroke, it could backfire on the Bulldogs.
Just two years ago, they were making similar statements about how another former Panthers assistant coach, Trent Barrett, was going to turn their fortunes around.
But 18 months into a three-year deal Barrett saw the writing on the wall and jumped before he was pushed out the kennel’s doggie door.
Mick Potter has done a superb job as caretaker and if he doesn’t remain on Ciraldo’s support staff at the Dogs, he should have no trouble finding a gig elsewhere, perhaps if a head coaching vacancy pops up in the near future.
He was handed a near impossible first assignment as the NRL head coach a decade ago at the Wests Tigers and thoroughly deserves another chance.
How Ciraldo goes in his first crack as the head honcho will be one of the main storylines of 2023.
The Bulldogs are still rebuilding following the mess left behind by Des Hasler’s back-ended contracts to ageing veterans which curtailed any chance Dean Pay had of succeeding when he was appointed coach.
Ciraldo inherits an improving roster with Kikau and Eels hooker Reed Mahoney adding to a team that has started to find its feet under Potter.
The decision to move Jake Averillo from the halves or centre to fullback has given the Dogs a strike weapon from the back. He will only get better in the No.1 jersey.
Potter is also getting better value out of on of this year’s marquee signings, Tevita Pangai jnr, by returning him from the edge to the middle where he can be at his destructive best.
Burton’s playmaking skills have improved as the season has gone on – he will never be a chief organiser at five-eighth, nor should be be, but his impact at the attacking end has gone through the roof pretty much since he was given his first NSW jersey in Origin II.
(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
His left-side combination with Josh Addo-Carr is becoming one of the best one-two punches in the NRL.
Sorting out halfback will be Ciraldo’s top task. Kyle Flanagan, after Gould curiously told Barrett the young playmaker was not ready for first grade at the start of the season, has gradually become more effective in the No.7 jersey.
He enters 2023 in the final year of his contract and Canterbury are circling St George Illawarra rising star Jayden Sullivan, who is likely to leave if the Dragons achieve their goal of extending skipper Ben Hunt’s deal for a few more years.
There have been plenty of examples brought up recently of rookie coaches being handed the keys to a team and then quickly being removed from the driver’s seat, like Pay, Garth Brennan, John Morris (perhaps unfairly) or having their future in great peril like Justin Holbrook and Adam O’Brien.
Anthony Seibold, like Ciraldo, was given a five-year deal despite a brief resume.
He had won Dally M Coach of the Year after taking the Rabbitohs to the finals in his rookie year before he was given a long-term multimillion-dollar contract by the Broncos.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
After all sorts of off-season machinations, he ended up switching roles with Wayne Bennett a year early but Seibold’s Brisbane stint ended in disaster within two seasons while Bennett took the Bunnies to last year’s Grand Final.
That’s the glass half-empty viewpoint – the example that the Bulldogs are hoping to replicate is Craig Fitzgibbon’s first-year success at the Sharks.
Fitzgibbon served an even lengthier and more successful stint as an assistant at the Roosters before signing on the dotted line with Cronulla and even he only got a three-year offer.
He was walking into a much better situation than what Ciraldo will confront – Morris had blooded several promising young prospects after the 2016 premiership-winning squad had moved or been moved on.
Ciraldo is unlikely to do too much roster rearranging heading into his first season but he will have flexibility for 2024 and beyond – Canterbury only have five players contracted beyond next year.
His arrival should help in their quest to extend the contract of their most important player in Burton, who will not opt into his 2024 option because he could earn much more elsewhere.
The Dogs will be able to splash the cash to lock Burton away and build around him to ensure Ciraldo will have all that he needs to break Canterbury’s longest playoff drought since the 1950s.
Ultimately, Canterbury have done well to sign the person touted as the best option on the market and the five-year deal is fraught with danger but when you’re at a club that demands success and you’re about to miss the finals for a sixth straight year, you have to take a risk.