Canterbury Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo says Sitili Tupouniua is "devastated" after the back-rower lasted just five minutes in his comeback game against the Roosters on Friday night, re-injuring his hamstring in the 20-18 loss.
Recurrence of injury
Returning from a lengthy layoff, Tupouniua felt the injury in the same spot he hurt about eight weeks ago, Ciraldo revealed after the match.
"I'm not sure how bad it is but he felt it in the same spot where he injured it about eight weeks ago," Ciraldo said. "He's pretty devastated because he was training really well. He was just excited to get back playing. This is what he does, this is what he loves doing, so he's pretty shattered."
Impact on the Bulldogs
The setback is a bitter blow for the Bulldogs, who sit ninth on the ladder and are fighting to make the finals. Tupouniua had been in outstanding form earlier in the season before injuring his hamstring at the end of June.
"He brings a fair bit of intensity to the way we train," Ciraldo said. "He's been up there with our best players all year consistently. He just brings so much to our team, physical wise, but also energy-wise. The thing I've been most surprised by Sitili in his two years here is the leadership that he brings. He's really come along in terms of leading young guys, and we've done well the last few weeks, but we've known that it'd be great when we have Sitili back on the field and just watching him out there training last night gave everyone a little bit of excitement."
Second-half fightback
The Bulldogs struggled in the first half but came out strongly after halftime, with hooker Bailey Hayward bursting up the middle and finding winger Kiraz, who scored under the posts. Stephen Crichton converted to level the scores.
Lachlan Galvin then put the Bulldogs ahead for the first time, drifting across field and darting through a Reece Robson tackle to score, before setting up Kiraz again. However, Canterbury couldn't land the decisive blow.
"I thought, considering how poorly we played in the first half, it was a pretty good sign that it was only 8-2," Ciraldo said. "Don't get me wrong, we're not leaving you with any less confidence than what we came here with. We didn't play the way we wanted to tonight. The Roosters deserved the win. They were really good for periods, but I think they'll probably think they can play better as well. We know what we can do when we play our style of footy but too many errors tonight didn't allow us to do that."
Minor premiership race
The Roosters' win has blown the race for the NRL minor premiership wide open, moving them to second on 36 points, level with ladder-leading Penrith. The Panthers sit first on for-and-against and host the Roosters next Thursday, likely without captain Isaah Yeo.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson acknowledged the need for improvement. "I think the ability to win in different situations is really key and we've probably had more than we would have liked in this scenario," he said. "I thought to start the game like we did tonight after last week (beating North Queensland 82-12) showed how hungry we are. But if you take away the result, and if I talk about just the footy that we want to play, we can play better and I want to play better than what we did tonight."
The victory gave the Roosters a seventh-straight win but also put a major dent in Canterbury's top-eight hopes after they threatened to upset the home side.
