With their first five game losing streak since 2022 the Bulldogs are officially in crisis, especially since all five defeats have been by at least 16 points. They’ve now won only four of their last 16 games and conceded more than 30 points for the fifth time this season (in the first half, no less) after only sinking this low in defence four times across the entire 2025 campaign. The nail in the coffin was one of the best halves of football this year from Cronulla, who hit half time during Thursday’s Magic Round opener at an imposing 30-6.

While the Dogs might have clawed their way back to a semblance of competition in the second stanza, they’ve still only won 1/7 Magic Round fixtures, compared to Cronulla’s three straight and are now just 2/19 at Suncorp since 2016, with more than half of those losses by 20 points or more. Canterbury’s 2025 identity was all about defence, with captain Stephen Crichton regularly touted as the best defensive centre in the comp, and on his 150^th milestone, he should have put in a pre-Blues stint like Teddy and Moses the week before.

Instead he consistently failed to summon the troops here, finding himself beaten by a Will Kennedy try and put on report for a dangerous throw, raising the question of whether his New South Wales spot deserves to go to Kotoni Staggs, although Latrell Mitchell’s unavailability makes it likely he’ll remain. Connor Tracey also struggled in defence, and in all four of Cronulla’s unanswered tries, culminating with the lowest point of Canterbury’s evening, when Hohepa Puru crossed from dummy half surrounded by four defenders.

Puru was one of the standouts from the game, making his first start of the year for the Sharks and his first ever start at hooker to replace Blayke Brailey, who finally missed his first game since 2020, after an astonishing 139 consecutive active matches, light years ahead of Jamayne Isaako on 89. Not only did Puru score the most devastating Cronulla try of the night but he prevented a near-certain try from Lachie Galvin in the final minute; one was the defining image of Canterbury’s struggles in defence, the other of their struggles in attack.  

Puru did well, then, to put himself in the spotlight when the big story was Ronaldo Mulitalo’s return to the Cronulla side after seven months on the sideline following his ACL rupture during New Zealand’s win over Samoa in the 2025 Pacific Championships. His passion and aggression made an immediate difference, galvanising the Sharkies out of a spotty few weeks – losses to the Bunnies, Cowboys and Roosters – and reiterating their argument for top eight contenders with deft tries in both the first and second stanzas.

With Braydon Trindall syncing well with Nicho Hynes, who had a stellar night with a try, three more try involvements and 7/8 with the boot, and with Kennedy’s speed through the middle third, which saw him isolate defenders and wreak havoc on Canterbury’s line, the Sharks delivered some of their best attack of the season, completing over 90% for the first time since playing the Dogs last year. Their first forty was especially spectacular, giving them license to relax into a more leisurely back half, with relatively little left for them to prove.

Four minutes into the match the surfeit of Magic Round energy produced a frenetic yet inspired try, as Hynes booted his first  attacking kick up the short side, 35 metres out. Tracey leaped for it and missed, and Kennedy made first contact with the head, showcasing real dexterity in the air to rein it in with his elbow, before withstanding a low tackle from Jacob Preston with a left-handed offload that Jaeman Salmon touched before Trindall popped it down. Right away, it felt like Hynes and Trindall were speaking the same league language.

The Bulldogs’ defensive line had already started to disintegrate, and Tracey had begun a sustained struggle to hold the chalk in the absence of proper support. At the ten minute mark Trindall went from scorer to assister, soaring a beautiful cut-out ball that cleared four players, and almost travelled half the width of the park, for Mulitalo to celebrate his return with some aerial gymnastics of his own, reaching out his right hand while his whole body was off the ground to defy Tracey, with the Doggies’ left edge defence nowhere in sight.

Even then Tracey hit him high, meaning that Hynes made up for his missed conversion with a penalty kick. Cronulla had scored two clinical tries on the right and six minutes later they proved they were just as deft on the left, as Kennedy shaped for the wing and beat Critta to put it down. A minute after that, the nadir of Canterbury’s night arrived, as Puru got the footy two metres out, found himself encircled by four Bulldogs, Tracey and Max King prime amongst them, but still managed to slide the Steeden down without much resistance.

Finally, half an hour in, the Dogs hit back with a left sweep trick of their own, widening and widening their passes, until Galvin shaped for a cut-out to the wing, so that it was like an optical illusion when he sent the bullet ball for Preston to curve around behind the posts. Yet this only remedied the 24-0 deficit for three minutes, as a searching Teig Wilton run to the ten paved the way for Hynes to collect a Puru pass and pivot back infield, where Kurt Mann slid to ground without a touch and Bailey Hayward barely got fingertips to him.

With the defensive line fractured Tracey surged from inside, and Preston from outside, but they were all like dominoes falling beneath the conviction of Hynes’ charge, effectively a reprisal of Puru’s try, one man scattering four defenders, sending the Dogs to the sheds in total disarray. Cronulla got the first points of the second half too, when a quick pass from Puru changed the direction of play to put Billy Burns two metres from the uprights, where a pair of penalties for Hayward, late tackle and strip, set up Hynes to boot through the two.

These would be the last Sharkies points for some time, but at no time did they ever really feel in danger, even if the Bulldogs did finally put their skipper into the spotlight and set up the sesquicentennial play he deserved. Dummying to draw in Kennedy, Critta sent the Steeden out to Enari Tuala, and while the Cronulla fullback was valiant in getting up from his slip, he wasn’t fast enough to intercept the pass that Tuala sent back seamlessly across his chest for Critta to curve around behind the posts and put down the Steeden untouched.

If the Dogs had been ahead this would have been a truly triumphal play and while the Sharks didn’t hit back until the 71^st minute, they made a pretty emphatic rejoinder, partly because it combined the core of their two opening tries – Hynes kicking, Mulitalo grounding – and partly because it was so languorous and leisurely, suffused with the footy flow of a team confident in winning. Hynes booted it to the right edge, Mulitalo outleaped Bronson Xerri, backed out of a potential Preston tackle, and twisted around to score a double.

For a moment the last five minutes looked like it might produce a comeback close to Parra against North Queensland the week before, as the Doggies almost nabbed three successive tries but only ended up having one ratified. The first chance came off a scrum, as Burton drew on the right edge energy of Critta’s splendid run with a sharp ball for Tuala, who crossed the chalk but not without KL Iro and Kennedy doing enough below and above respectively, showcasing exactly the defensive commitment that Canterbury had lacked.  

Three minutes from the end they got their try on the other side of the park, thanks to a nice pair of passes from the halves that put Xerri in place to dummy just enough for Mulitalo to slide to the wing, leaving space for him to run it through the line. It would have been a respectable enough closing note, all things considered, but all the Bulldogs’ hope and frustration was condensed to the final minute, which nearly turned into one of their great halves’ plays this season, and began with a King offload out the back halfway up the park.

Hayward was the recipient and immediately sent it on to Burto, who burst into space over halfway and shifted it to Galvin at the thirty. Cometh the hour cometh the man, as Puru got Galvin by the shorts ten out, held on for dear life and, with Sam Stonestreet coming in, caused the cough-up right on the chalk, the very instant Lachie was grounding Steeden It was impossible to imagine a more mercurial shift from putdown to cough-up – Puru had metaphorically caught the Dogs with their pants down in scoring his try; now it was literal.

Between stopping a near-certain try and scoring a try through what should have been rock solid defence, Puru epitomised Cronulla’s gutsy brilliance tonight, and the Doggies knew it, as the energy of Magic Round spilled over into a fiery fracas embodied by an amped-up Sitili Tupouniua. With Tracey and Critta both facing the judiciary this week for dangerous contact, Canterbury have to drill down on defensive discipline as they prepare to take on the Storm next week, in what has turned out, in the surreal twists of 2026, to be a bottom four fight.