There is no doubt there is plenty of rugby league talent in the body of Canterbury’s polarising mid-season recruit Lachie Galvin.
It appears there is also plenty of aspiration, as shown by his opportunistic move to a team that has only recently opened their premiership window and will play deep into the finals in 2025 barring a stark turnaround in form.
We all know his pedigree, the talent shown at junior level and tongues had been wagging for a number of years prior to his eventual debut for the Wests Tigers in Round 2 of 2024.
The Bulldogs and Phil Gould had not been the only club hoping that the basket case that is the modern-day Wests Tigers would be enough to have the Westfields Sports High graduate frustrated in the short term and looking for greener pastures.
Sure enough and embarrassingly for the Tigers and coach Benji Marshall, that time arrived fairly quickly and the 20-year-old was on the move before Wests even appeared to have put up a real fight to convince him to stay.
With seemingly no confidence in Benji, or at least a manager intent on convincing the player that that was a fair position to take, Galvin walked free from the train-wreck Tigers and into a unified, cohesive and still improving Bulldogs team under the guidance of Cameron Ciraldo.
With the Bulldog’s points haul of 30 coming mostly off the back of beating teams well below them on the ladder and their credentials still to be proven against the top sides later in the season when the stakes are far higher, Canterbury are far from premiership favourites.
The Bulldogs are looking for something more with the acquisition of Lachie Galvin. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)
A confident and previously underrated Raiders and the ever present Storm deserve to be the top two in that conversation, with everybody in the rugby league world keeping the Panthers safe in the betting, based on their record and what we know their stars are capable of when it matters most.
But the Dogs are there, sniffing around and on target for a top four spot in 2025.
With the Dragons, Sea Eagles, Tigers and Roosters on the agenda across their final eight matches of the season, a loss or three against the Warriors, Storm, Panthers and Sharks in their other four games might still allow them to manage a spot in that valuable top four.
The big question is whether Galvin, now seemingly assured of the halfback spot after the rather well choreographed exit from the top 17 of Toby Sexton, is capable of what Ciraldo will need from him.
Irrespective of who plays alongside in the six, halfback’s role is perhaps the most important one in any premiership-winning team, with the greats of the game littering the list of sevens that have steered teams through finals campaigns and lifted trophies.
Names like Johns, Stuart, Mortimer, Alexander, Sterling, Cronk, Cherry-Evans, Langer, Cleary and Reynolds take us all the way back to the 1980s.
Teams simply do not win premierships without a quality seven and aside from the very rare exception, it is something to bank on each and every NRL year.
Adam Reynolds. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
What we have seen from Galvin thus far has been impressive. Yet taking a free-wheeling approach in a poor team, where his natural instincts were allowed to shine and the expectation of wining rarely existed, to suddenly becoming part of what is a well drilled, organised and structured machine under Ciraldo is another thing all together.
It will be defensively where much of the focus and attention will be placed. The Bulldogs cover for each other and move as a block as effectively as any team in the competition. Galvin did not automatically look comfortable in that set-up when he debuted for the blue and whites.
Whether he has the flexibility to make the adjustments required and manage to meld into the overall package will indeed be crucial, yet it is on the attacking side that plenty of doubts exists.
From what we have seen, the team orientation of the Dogs’ play is a little unfamiliar to him and a true buy-in, where Matt Burton plays a more dominant role in the halves and Galvin takes a back seat for the benefit of the team, will require the new kid on the block to munch on some humble pie.
Galvin gives me the impression that he knows all too well how talented he is and has been affected by the people that have told him so for the last decade.
Canterbury have taken a huge risk is shunting Sexton for a player that will need time to become the cog in the wheel that Ciraldo needs him to be.
Only time will tell if he can manage it and the Dog’s season, without attempting to be too dramatic, will ultimately depend on whether Galvin can simplify his game, eliminate some rash errors and play a well defined role that takes some attention away from him.
