Canterbury captain Stephen Crichton has launched a passionate defence of Lachlan Galvin's ability to play halfback, tipping the struggling playmaker to become an NRL great after league legend Andrew Johns questioned the Bulldogs' direction.
Galvin's form has come under intense scrutiny after Canterbury suffered a 32-12 defeat to a severely depleted Brisbane Broncos side on Friday, slumping to a 3-4 start to the season.
Since his controversial move to Belmore from Wests Tigers midway through 2025, Galvin has won just seven of the 16 games in which he has been named to start at halfback.
Only one team — bottom-placed St George Illawarra — are scoring fewer points than the Bulldogs, who are averaging just 19 points per game through their first seven matches.
Those struggles prompted Johns to declare on the Nine Network this week that Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo should end the experiment and shift Galvin to his more familiar position of five-eighth.
But Crichton pointed to Galvin's performance in the Bulldogs' 32-16 win over premiership favourites Penrith earlier this month as evidence that the 20-year-old is the right man to lead Canterbury forward.
“The way he played against the Panthers, everyone was on his side, saying he was the best halfback that week,” Crichton said.
“Now, two weeks later, he probably hasn’t performed the way he would’ve wanted to and that’s a reflection of the boys around him not helping him do his job.
“We definitely know that he is our halfback, and the way he played against the Panthers is the way a halfback should be playing.”
Galvin has been shielded from the media spotlight all season and has not publicly addressed his form.
Crichton believes the criticism the young playmaker is facing is “pretty harsh”.
“I feel for Lachie,” he said. “He has been getting criticised a lot lately for the way that our team has been performing and ever since he’s come to the club.
“I’ve always said, if you’re not getting criticised, you’re not doing your job right.
“He’ll be learning from this. He’s learning these lessons as a young 20-year-old, and he’s going to become a player — like one of the greats — sooner or later.
“I feel like all the lessons that he’s taking right now are pretty harsh, but it’s going to build him up to be the player that he wants to be.”
Crichton, whose side host North Queensland on Friday, said the frustration with Canterbury’s form had been the fiercest he had experienced.
“I haven’t felt this much criticism since I got to the club, to be honest,” the centre said.
“But with a big club and a big fan base, there’s always going to be people with their opinion.
“I feel like we’ve been really clear with our boys where our answers lay, and that’s inside our four walls, regardless of media attention and social media posts.
“As long as you have the opinion of your players and the coaching staff, that’s the only opinions that you can listen to.”
