Cameron Ciraldo interview | Reaction to Matt Burton's winner, Bulldogs on the rise & more! 08:31

Mark Levy, Alana Ferguson, Daryl Broman and Paul Gallen, the continuous call team. Well, what about last night? The resurgence of this Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldog side continued. The game went to golden point extra time. Matt Burton had a couple of cracks at field goal early days and then in extra time he stepped up and handed the Bulldogs a hard-fought win. But gee, an impressive win at that. It's tackle number five. What are they going to do with it here? They're shaping up for the field goal. It's with Matt Burton. It's

the distance it's gone all well this is unbelievable what a script you couldn't have written it any better dogs have won in golden point extra time it's come right they've won the game 15 and the man who was watching on from the coaches boxes cameron serraldo and i'm pleased to say he joins us on the line g'day cam hey guys thanks for having me mate what a win last night congratulations golden point thriller and maddie burton the man to get you home

Yeah, it was awesome. Awesome for Birdo to nail that moment. We've had a few games this year where we haven't quite got it right at the end of the game and haven't executed the way we wanted to, but I feel like we're learning from those lessons and it was awesome for Birdo to get that moment last night. Speaking of not executing, how was the old ticker when Nico had his lined up?

Yeah, I felt like it was a bit of advantage for us because the play before got so close to the trial line. So obviously our defenders aren't back as far. So it was always going to be under a bit more pressure. Ideally, you're trying to sort of get a field goal from at least 10 metres out, play ball 10 metres out to give you a bit more time and space. So, yeah, I think it was a bit of advantage for us.

I sort of had my hopes up as I got closer to the trial line, but yeah, it was still nice that Reid was able to get some good pressure on me. Mate, you've managed to buy some pretty handy players over the last couple of years, and they've all done a really good job for you. But as a young bloke, I do know very little about him. I've been watching this year, Bailey Haywood, who's forced his way into the side. I just like...

I just like his style. He gives you a bit of a ball player on the fringes around the rack. I just like the way he plays. There's not much of him, but, geez, he's a goer.

He's a great kid. He's basically a halfback up until this preseason. He's played halfback all through the grades coming through here at the Bulldogs and played New South Wales Cup for us at halfback last year and then this year he's sort of stuck down the pecking order. We threw him in at hooker a little bit and he started to show some good signs and then all of a sudden he got a crack at lock and he's just done a great job. Really tough kid, comes from a tough family.

And he's just taken his opportunity with both hands. He debuted earlier in the year against Melbourne. And basically, he's become that important to our team that, yeah, he's one of the first ones picked every week. So, yeah, we love Bailey. Cameron, we've spoken earlier, and I've spoken multiple times here, about Stephen Crichton at 23 years of age. His leadership has been unbelievable. But Viliami Kikau, for me, just his presence on the field just gives you guys a hell of a lot of confidence, doesn't it?

Mate, 100%. We didn't think Billy was going to be able to play yesterday. It wasn't until sort of captain's run and late at night where he said, I'm in. He was sort of battling with a few injuries there and he said he was playing, Krita said he was playing and we're like, all right, we're both in here. So, yeah, considering how busted he was to go into that game, just his presence and kick chase and his leadership through actions, just so important to our team and so grateful that he was out there.

Sarah, I want to ask an in-depth question here about Matt Burton. I love Matt Burton. One thing that I've noticed with him, when he puts those monster kicks up, occasionally he'll do the spiral, but on most occasions he does the end-over-end-over-end kick. I'm frustrated that he doesn't do the spiral enough. Is there a reason for that or not?

Well, everyone loves Birdo's bombs. The crowd wants to see them, but it's about what's best for our team. I think against Parry, he put three up. Gutherson caught two of them and they landed in the middle of a field 20 metres out from their trial line. They sort of start with an advantage.

on their attacking set. So sort of a bit of risk versus reward with his style of kick there. If he can put it into the 10 by 10 box in the corner, it really helps our defence. And that was a real priority for us this year to get our defence right. Okay, so it's actually a tactic from you and him as opposed to...

When is he given a licence to put the spiral up? Is that a different situation? It depends who we're playing, what sort of fullback, where their confidence levels are at, time of the game. There's probably times he could have done it last night, but he just stuck to the plan and kept putting it in the corner and turned it into that semi-final type

sort of grind and yeah that's what we wanted to build our season on and really help our defence there and we've been able to do that we're one of the better defensive teams in the comp now and a lot of that comes back to the way the control Matt has with his kicking game to finish our sets Cam this is there's two last questions I want to ask you the first is you know you're a reserve sort of bloke you've been in the game a long long time how difficult is it when things are being written things are being said about the club but you know that

that you're going to be in a good position. And how delighted are you now to be seeing the fruits of not only the recruitment, but the hard work that's been put in since you've joined the club under Phil Gould and the Bulldogs are now positioning themselves for a crack at some finals footy? Yeah, I'll say the first part of your question there, how hard is it to see it? I don't see a lot of it. I don't have social media. I don't go looking for all...

all the stuff that's written. So sometimes every now and then people will tell me what's written and I'll, you know, I'll have a little bit, bit of a chuckle, um, you know, because I know, I know where we're going. The light, it was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel last year at different times, but I knew if we stuck to our plans, stuck to our systems, eventually, um, we'd be able to break through. And, um, I wasn't sure how long it would take, but, um,

This year we're starting to show signs of that and you can start to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. These guys that were brought in from recruitment, it was a really simple charter of what we wanted to recruit. We wanted to recruit good people who work hard and are good connectors of people. The cohesion and the connection that those guys have brought into our group

I think everyone can see that, especially in the way we defend. So, yeah, that didn't faze me at all, sort of what's been written or what was said, because I wasn't seeing a lot of it. But it is nice to see now that those guys or the players and the team in particular are getting some recognition for how hard they're working and the style of play that they have. Like I thought last night,

you know, we were very clunky in attack. We probably missed the, you know, Connor Tracy at the back and Jacob Preston on the edge and Kurt Mann who's been like an extra halfback for us and, you know, whenever we've got Josh Addo-Kar on the wing as well, we've got, you know, a bit more speed that we can play to and we're

We missed four guys who were really important to our team there, but it didn't matter. Everyone that came in has taken their opportunity and bought into what we're doing. That's the most pleasing thing, how much they've come together and how hard they're working. Well, Cameron, we need to out one of my colleagues here. One of your players, Josh Curran, he copped a bit of grief last week off the back of a loss. A few of the supporters got stuck into him.

It's my information that Paul Gallen, you actually ran into Josh Curran this week and gave him some words of wisdom, just told him not to worry. You'll be right. You'll play well on the weekend.

And then there was a light bulb moment. You realised the dogs were coming up against your sharks. Can you confirm or deny this, Gal? Look, I've known Josh Curran since he's been a kid. He actually used to come and train with me on the weekends. Is this confirmation? So you told him what to do against your team you were involved in? I felt sorry for him and I felt what he caught was ridiculous and not right. So I went in and saw the young bloke and I said, hey, mate, I know you got a bit of criticism last week. I just give him a bit of words of advice. And I said, just keep doing you, mate. You're doing a good job. And I walked out the cafe and I went,

Oh, they're playing the Sharks this week. So anyway, I'm glad he played well for you. Did you know who you were? Mate, I just said a moment ago, I used to train with him when he was a kid. It doesn't matter who you were. Anyway. Hey, Cameron, well done, mate. It's great to see the Bulldogs doing what they do best, and that's winning football games. So congratulations on the victory. Golden point thriller last night, and you enjoy your weekend.

Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. Good on you, mate. Cameron Serraldo doing a great job at the Bulldogs. 15-14, Matt Burton, the hero in Golden Point Extra Time.