Former Bulldog Josh Morris has defended coach Cameron Ciraldo and blasted the current “generation” of players amid the reported criticism that training methods at the club were too harsh.
It has been a torrid week for the Bulldogs, who have copped plenty of heat after claims a player walked out of the club with over a year to go on his contract after a brutal training punishment.
Bulldogs skipper Reed Mahoney backed his coach in a press conference on Friday, stating he had no problem with the training standards at the club.
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“Training is hard. If it was easier, everyone would be doing it,” Mahoney said.
Morris said seeing the Bulldogs in the position they are in has been tough, but thinks Ciraldo can’t be criticised for wanting to “change the culture”.
“It’s hard to see as a former player. You don’t want to see a club like the Bulldogs where they are right now,” Morris said on 2GB.
“I agree with what Cameron Ciraldo is trying to do. He is trying to change a culture from a losing one, which it has been for five years, to a winning one.
“How do you do that? You build that on hard work.”
The Bulldogs player who is reported to have walked out on the club, did so after having to wrestle a number of teammates as a punishment for being late.
Morris, who was trained by Des Hasler while at the Bulldogs between 2012-2017, says the former coach always used wrestling as a training method, which would develop “mental toughness” and “physical fitness.”
The New South Wales star also slammed the current generation of NRL players and their attitude to hard work.
“I don’t think all the Bulldogs players are working hard. I mean wrestling 20-30 blokes, that was a Monday or Tuesday when I played with Dessie. We would wrestle non-stop and you pretty much go until you couldn’t breathe,” Morris said.
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“It’s the generation as well. They want to get paid as much as they can for doing as little as they can.
“The job hasn’t changed. You are a professional athlete. If you think turning up to training half an hour early is good enough, your wrong. You have to turn up 45 minutes to an hour before training starts.
“You got to be accountable in how you train and how you play … You hear about all this negativity and whinging about long training days. They have one long training day where they finish at 5pm. We would do days where we would get in at 7 and leave at 5 nearly every day.
“When you are losing, you find things to whinge about. It’s like cancer, it just spreads.
“It takes one or two players being in senior positions for it to filter down and the younger players see that.
“I’ve got no doubt that some of those players have checked out already. No doubts. Last weekend, there were players out there that looked like they didn’t care and that’s the heartbreaking thing for me.”
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