Canterbury Bulldogs head coach Cameron Ciraldo has suggested the penalty count against his side during a Good Friday NRL loss to the South Sydney Rabbitohs may not have been entirely warranted.

The Bulldogs, who lost a topsy-turvy game where they fell behind early, recovered to take the lead, and then fell apart late against the Rabbitohs in front of 45,000 fans, struggled throughout the second half.

While they turned the ball over 17 times throughout the game and Ciraldo made the baffling decision himself to play Sean O'Sullivan instead of Bronson Xerri when Stephen Crichton went down with a shoulder injury during the second half, the coach took his attention to the penalty count.

That tally ended 8-2 in the favour of South Sydney, and Ciraldo, speaking during the post-game press conference, more or less suggested there wasn't much his side would have been able to do about it.

“I'd be silly not to [talk to the NRL about the penalties],” Ciraldo said.

“We've got to learn from it. There's probably some things in there that we can control and do better, but there's probably a few we could have got as well I reckon at some stage.

“I'm going to have to have a look at them, but I'm not sure how much of it we could control.

“The fact you're asking me if they're contentious probably means they are, but I don't know, I'm sitting up in the box.

“The reality is we got penalised six or seven times in the second half. They completed 24 sets straight, so they did a great job with that. And we had no possession, no field position.

“Then at the end there was just too many fatigue errors on the back of that.

“But I'm sitting here a much prouder coach of their effort tonight than I was this time last week, so very happy with how they hung in there when then everything was going against them. And then even strong enough to get that last try, which shows they never give up.”

The head coach has come under fire in recent weeks for a failure to change his team, with Canterbury's 24 points on Friday their highest score of the year, taking the side's total tally to just 69 points from 4 games.

The two and two top four hopefuls will clash with the red-hot Penrith Panthers next weekend.

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