Bulldogs star’s combination with Jacob Preston key to Penrith Panthers upset
Canterbury’s attack was floundering two weeks ago and Lachlan Galvin was part of the problem.
The promising quarterback was guilty of doing too much: too many touches, too many runs; a kid who is still in the early stages of his career and is still learning the craft of watching, waiting, and knowing when to pull the trigger.
But last week’s clash with Penrith was a turning point for Galvin, who helped orchestrate an upset against the competition’s unbeaten favourites.
This week presents a new challenge for Galvin as he faces Parramatta, who tried to pry him away from Wests Tigers before heading to Canterbury. He faces another challenge: finding match-winning form week in and week out.
The difference with Galvin last week against Penrith compared to two or three weeks ago was that he watched and reacted to what he saw from the defence. This is the cliché that football players like to use: “eyes-up football”. But that’s exactly how Galvin played, and he eventually found the balance between running and passing.
The Bulldogs ran the ball early against Penrith and were pulled up for a tackle after Jacob Preston denied running Blaize Talagi the chance to stop his charging Connor Tracey.
Rather than let that bother them, the Bulldogs reloaded, went again and swung left to slot Viliame Kikau across for the first try of the night.
After identifying the weakness in Penrith’s left-wing defence, Galvin continued to go there all night long, terrorizing Talagi, a former schoolmate and rising talent on a similar path. At full-time, Talagi recorded a notable nine missed tackles.
Galvin’s combination with Preston was particularly important for Canterbury this year, but it didn’t happen overnight.
They have been working together on the right side for about 10 months now and are finally starting to see the fruits of their work.
Andrew Johns said of Galvin after the game: “I loved the combination with Preston on the right wing; use it all the time, use short passes.”
“Look, there are still some flaws in the way he plays, but what I like most about him is he wants the ball in his hands. He gets up.” [and says]’Give me the ball’. He’s still learning his game. He’s just a really young guy.
“He’s not a natural playmaker, but he’s learning his craft. And if he’s learning his game, he’s learning the players around him. That combination is building, building, building. So they’re playing their game.”
Galvin came back to Preston as Penrith responded with an equalizer just after half-time.
Although they had initially targeted Talagi’s outside shoulder – getting in between him and Casey McLean – this time Galvin turned to Talagi’s inside shoulder after seeing a gap open between the five-eighth and Isaiah Papali’i. He ran the ball towards the line and then passed the ball to Preston who put the Dogs ahead once again.
Penrith failed to get another point.
After 17 minutes of back-and-forth bickering (the kind of football Penrith loves) and Canterbury making sloppy mistakes, the Panthers also started making uncharacteristic mistakes.
While Penrith’s attack down the left had been the talk of the town all year, it was the chink in their armor defensively.
With field position in Canterbury’s favour, it was once again a Galvin short ball to Preston inside Talagi that opened the way for the Panthers, with prop Sitili Tupouniua crossing to score the match-winning goal.
With this combination seemingly buzzing, the next step in Galvin’s game is to create these combinations on the field.
“He needs to go to the other side and improve his game with Viliame Kikau,” Johns said in his comment.
“He’s got to figure out how to get into space to Tupouniua. He’s got to work on his plays for dummy half. He’s got to work on his plays with Bailey Hayward here. That’s part of the half-time.
“There are different parts of your field, you have to improve your game from start to finish. [those] different parts of the pitch, but what compliments the back row, centre-backs and full-backs. However [it was a] “Tonight is a big game for him, a big game.”
Coach Cameron Ciraldo was hesitant to label Galvin’s performance as the best in the NRL. But he couldn’t deny the improvement in his younger half’s decision-making.
Ciraldo said after the game: “This was his 50th game tonight; a lot of people say it takes 50 games to feel like an NRL player or understand it very well. I thought he was excellent.”
“He controlled the game for a long time, he did what he had to do, he didn’t overplay his hand, he’s improving every week. And he’s got some work to do, Lachy. There are always questions asked about him and he handled it brilliantly.”
