The Canterbury Bulldogs and their supporters will wake up this morning knowing their season, and hopes of making the finals, lay in ruins.
The blue and white came into the season, if you listened to their own coaching staff, their playing group, and their optimistic fan base, with up being the only way to go.
That, despite 2025 finishing at a crawl.
They made the top four last year, but it was felt as if the earth fell out from under the club during the second half of the year, and the straight sets bounce from the finals was ultimately inevitable.
While the optimism from the fan base that the Bulldogs were back was certainly warranted given the results of 2025, and the pre-season that should have born fruit, there were obvious questions around the Bulldogs.
Mainly, is the forward pack big enough, do they have the spark in the back three, and are they going to be able to find enough points without a pure game organiser on the field?
Unfortunately for the blue and white, all of those questions could have been answered in the way the team was recruited heading into 2026, and indeed in the way it was picked throughout the season, but the objective analysis is that both Phil Gould and Cameron Ciraldo have failed to get the tough questions right.
The biggest single factor the majority will point to when discussing the demise of the Belmore-based outfit is Lachlan Galvin.
His signing, his lack of ability to organise, his experience or lack thereof.
He does cop probably too much in the way of criticism. Certainly, Galvin is one of the hardest-workers in the game, he reads the game well and takes his opportunities, as evidenced by the number of tries he scores, or times he puts himself in a position to score.
But he plays the game like a genuine five-eighth, or potentially, a small ball, fast-moving lock forward.
Not like a halfback.
And that is ultimately the criticism of Canterbury this year. That they simply don't have a game organising winner to control the flow of the action.
You can date it right back to the start of the season, when the Bulldogs beat the eventual likely wooden spooners, the St George Illawarra Dragons, by a point in Las Vegas, before going to Canberra and narrowly getting the better of the Canberra Raiders.
They were wins, and wins at that time of year are critical no matter how you get them, but they papered over a number of cracks.
Because then Canterbury, who struggled to score points early in the year, started to lose.
They lost to the Knights, they lost to the Rabbitohs, and while they put on a masterclass of a performance to beat the Panthers, they'd back that up by being blown out by another pair of strugglers the Eels and Broncos.
By the time they got to Round 12, they had lost seven of their last eight. Their attack, which had started falling away statistically almost the moment Toby Sexton realised his future wasn't with the club, and was drawn to a new low once Lachlan Galvin came into the first-grade side, was faltering, their up and in defence wasn't good enough, and suddenly, being in the mix for the finals was a long, long way away.
Something finally changed for the Bulldogs in Round 14, with the blue and white going on to win six of their next seven.
Stephen Crichton's move into the halves paid dividends, and the Bulldogs capped off the run by beating the Melbourne Storm in Melbourne, and scoring 36 points to do so.
A number like that was unthinkable for the blue and white early in the campaign where their attack, in the nicest terms we can put, looked lost.
But the problem for the Bulldogs is that the majority of those wins weren't convincing, and after losing to the Roosters last Friday, they fell well short against the South Sydney Rabbitohs on Friday evening which has all but ended their finals charge.
With their season on the line, desperation should have been easy, but they lacked the urgency at both ends of the park, lacked the execution to get around it, and ultimately paid the price with a 16-point loss that would have been more if Jayden Sullivan was a regular goal kicker.
Ultimately, the strategy change of Crichton into the halves gives Ciraldo something to hang on to, but not much.
He has been hamstrung by the signing of Galvin, and others, with the roster in serious need of more transformation heading into next year.
Connor Tracey was re-signed to be the club's fullback seemingly as an afterthought after they were liked to Jahream Bula, while members of the forward pack at certain times just aren't up to what it takes to be a starting player in a successful team.
Canterbury have plenty of talent on their way through the pathways, and should enter 2027 more settled than they have at any point in recent years.
Maybe 2025 was over-achievement, but we will never really know given the dual departures of Reed Mahoney and Toby Sexton.
2027 though must be on par with expectations, which, off the cuff, should see a blue and white side improving to the point of being back in the finals.
If they don't, then the long-term process that Ciraldo and Gould have built, and the jobs that go with it, will be under a considerable microscope.
