A defiant Cameron Ciraldo claims he wouldn't change anything about Canterbury's NRL campaign after a late season fade-out was compounded by a straight-sets exit in the finals.
Ciraldo alluded to the fact that the post-mortem of the Dogs' campaign, where they led at the half-point of the year before winning just two of their final six regular season games, would centre on his spine changes.
The Bulldogs coach axed regular halfback Toby Sexton for mid-season recruit Lachlan Galvin as well as demoting first-choice hooker Reed Mahoney to a bench role in the latter half of 2025.
Canterbury finished third after 27 rounds and suffered successive losses to Melbourne and four-time defending premiers Penrith on Sunday in a 46-26 defeat.
"I wouldn't change a thing... This is all part of the journey," Ciraldo said.
"There's been some tough times this year and our guys have had to deal with a lot more scrutiny than some other places and the way they've stuck together and handled it and kept building a really strong culture - we're incredibly proud.
"Our season was weird, we were coming first but we had a couple of byes there that helped us sit in that position.
"We played a lot of top quality opposition the second half of the year. This is the first year our club had to go through the Origin period with a lot of players involved, so that's another part of our learning.
"We had injuries at different times which didn't help us as well.
"I know what the headlines will be, but internally we're really clear on how this season panned out, what was good, what we need to do better and today's a massive lesson in that as well."
Ciraldo reserved particular praise for Galvin, who helped the Dogs launch a second-half fightback on Sunday along with Bailey Hayward.
Hooker Hayward is the man who has ousted North Queensland-bound Mahoney as the club's first-choice No. 9.
"We don't need any vindication or validation of what we're doing," Ciraldo said.
"We know what we're doing and we're really confident in what we're doing, but for Lachie to go out there today and attack the game the way he did, I thought he was one of our top players.
"I thought Bailey Hayward was one of our top players out there when he got on the field.
"For those two guys in particular to come out and be two of our best on the big stage under the most pressure says a lot about their character in terms of how much crap they had to deal with this week and external opinions.
"Those two guys are tough, tough characters. They're going to play a massive part in our future."