It has been one of the biggest rugby league stories in 2025. Lachlan Galvin’s decision to leave the Wests Tigers and ink a deal with the table-topping Bulldogs is intriguing, to say the least.

The decision infuriated Tigers fans for a simple reason: Galvin’s reasoning was that the current Tigers coach and club legend Benji Marshall, who steered the Tigers to premiership glory in 2005, wasn’t capable of getting the best out of him.

As he put it in a statement released several weeks ago, “I just feel that as I move into an important period of my development as a half, that I continue to build my game at a different club.”

Soon, this argument will be tested. Benji, who himself was a rugby league prodigy, didn’t over-coach Galvin. The young kid was given a chance to follow his instincts. Run the ball. Support. Rely on an impressive short kicking game.

Jarome Luai, the four-time premiership winner at Penrith, was recruited by the Tigers to provide the structure. Galvin was meant to bring the flair.

Yet when Galvin joins the Bulldogs, he walks into a different playing environment, one in which Bulldogs coach, Cameron Ciraldo, has already done a masterful job assembling a team of versatile players and imposing a ruthless playing structure.

Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

How Galvin fits into this structure remains to be seen. After all, he is not a conventional halfback. It will be a big adjustment for the 19-year-old if he is given the job of running a team already sitting on top of the ladder. Galvin is a ball runner, not an organiser.

Outside of his short kicking game and moments of impromptu ball playing, he doesn’t create that many opportunities for the players around him. The best halves see where their teams need to be, get them there, then they execute. They don’t always make it up on the spot.

Which is why I’d be surprised if he is given the No.7 jersey at the Bulldogs, at least in the short term. Maybe, though, this is the coaching that Galvin wants. But it doesn’t suit every young player. For some, structure can be too stifling.

Benji knows this as well as anyone. When he played under Tim Sheens in 2005, Benji was not the type of player that could be over-coached. His game evolved as he got older, but it took many years and the influence of the master coach, Wayne Bennett.

Another case in point is Sam Walker, a brilliant and creative half who excels when it comes to playing what he sees. But it has taken many years – and is probably still a work in progress – for the Roosters to get the balance right between Walker playing on instinct and rigorously adhering to Trent Robinson’s game plans.

Part of the art of good coaching is knowing what a player needs at a particular moment in their career, and being able to adapt their style of coaching when players reach a different stage of sporting maturity.

If Galvin, then, doesn’t play halfback, where does he fit? Some say he is a No.6, which is probably fair enough. But does Matt Burton, one of the Bulldogs’ most talented players, get shifted to the centres, and Stephen Crichton, the club captain, moved to fullback? These are big changes to make in the middle of a season to accommodate the arrival of Galvin.

How the puzzle fits together is up to Ciraldo and the Bulldogs would certainly have a plan, but I don’t know if Galvin will be in the starting 13 when the Bulldogs play the Eels on June 9. Injuries and suspensions might play a role.

Of course, none of this is to suggest that Galvin couldn’t be coached to be the type of organising and running half which some people want him to be. But it will take time, plenty of it. Players like Cooper Cronk don’t develop overnight.

The final point worth making about Galvin’s arrival at the Bulldogs is that the young man arrives with some baggage, whether fair or unfair. Leaving the league’s perennial battlers and three-time wooden spooners for the table-topping Bulldogs looks like the young kid is searching for instant success.

Will Galvin mesh with Canterbury’s stars, or upset the applecart? (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

It doesn’t matter if his family talk about their concerns regarding his long-term development. Would he have joined the Bulldogs three years ago when they were languishing down the bottom of the ladder? Did anyone then think that the Bulldogs looked like an attractive option?

Clubs rise and fall. They always do. Galvin even knocked back a more lucrative offer from the Eels, allegedly his favourite club as a kid. Maybe this makes sense given the current state of the NRL ladder, but it would be nice to see greater tribalism in kids trying to rise to the top.

Walking out the door of the Tigers, armed with a dossier of grievances against the coach and his “bullying” teammates, Galvin arrives at a club whose captain is best friends with Luai – the Tigers co-captain who is probably as glad as anyone to see Galvin’s departure.

It will be an interesting introduction, much as it will be when he greets Toby Sexton and Reed Mahoney, two players who look like being moved on in 2026 to accommodate his arrival at Belmore.

Still, part of the Bulldogs appeal, we are told, is that Galvin has a strong relationship with Luke Vella, an assistant coach at Canterbury who also coached Galvin at Westfield Sports High. Whatever way you look at it, the Galvin saga stalks the 2025 season.

Have the Bulldogs got the man to lead them to a premiership, or will this damage team morale and see the Dogs slide?

Phil Gould said when publicly courting the young playmaker, whoever gets Galvin will win premierships.

We’ll see, Gus.