The Bulldogs began this season being discussed as premiership contenders. They will end it in the ninth-place hinterland.

Canterbury came into 2026 off a year that had genuinely excited people. Third on the ladder in 2025, a semi-final appearance, a young roster that looked two or three good decisions away from the real thing. The pain of that finals exit was supposed to be fuel. Instead it turned out to be the high-water mark.

The collapse was not gradual. After a stunning Round 6 upset of the Panthers, the kind of result that makes everyone reach for the word contender again, Canterbury lost to the Eels, Broncos, Cowboys and Dolphins, shipping 142 points across the four. By Magic Round they had lost seven of eight and were staring at their first four-game losing streak since the back end of 2023, which for a club that had spent two years selling upward momentum was a jarring place to be. By late May they sat fourteenth with four wins and eight losses. The mathematics were already unkind, and the cut-off for eighth the previous year had required something close to thirteen wins.

What went wrong is where the argument gets pointed. The consensus criticism has landed squarely on the recruitment table, with Phil Gould and Cameron Ciraldo both wearing it for a spine that never cohered. The Lachlan Galvin signing has become the shorthand for the whole thing, an obviously gifted footballer who has spent the year playing like a five-eighth or a fast-moving lock rather than the halfback the structure needed him to be. Connor Tracey’s re-signing at fullback, arrived at only after the club had been publicly linked with alternatives, reads in hindsight like a decision made in the absence of a plan.

There is a fairer counter-reading, and it deserves airing. Canterbury did not fold. They dragged themselves from fourteenth back to ninth, arrived at Round 26 with a 3–2 record from their past five and a genuine pulse.

The season was lost in April and May, in a stretch where the defence disintegrated and the halves could not agree on who was steering, and no amount of late competence could buy those weeks back.

Ciraldo’s fourth season ends without finals football. The fifth arrives with the Galvin question unresolved, a fanbase that has now been promised a corner-turn twice, and rather less patience in the bank.