Hohepa Puru scored his first NRL try on May 15, 2026, and did it by carrying a few Bulldogs defenders over the line in Cronulla’s Magic Round match against Canterbury.
The fill-in hooker for Blayke Brailey had the kind of debut moment that turns a routine score into a scene, with Fox League calling it the Bulldogs’ worst moment of the season. Andrew Voss said, “That’s the worst moment of the Bulldogs’ season right there,” before adding, “Resilience has left the building when it comes to the Bulldogs. Resilience has dropped off the charts.” Greg Alexander was just as blunt. “They cannot defend their line. What has happened to the Bulldogs’ steely, gritty defensive line?” he said as Canterbury’s edge continued to crack.
The try arrived after Braydon Trindall had opened the Magic Round weekend five minutes into the match, setting the tone for a Sharks side that kept finding space and kept making Canterbury pay. Ronaldo Mulitalo then reached his 101st career try, and the Bunker later spotted a late hit from Connor Tracey to Mulitalo’s face as the score was being completed, handing Cronulla a penalty as well.
That sequence summed up a game that got away from the Bulldogs fast. Matt Burton briefly forced a goal-line dropout to give Canterbury a rare attacking chance, but Cronulla responded at the other end and the Bulldogs soon trailed by 24 points. What had begun as a chance to reset in Brisbane instead became a blunt public reading of where Canterbury stood: floundering in defence and completely lost against a Sharks side that kept turning every break into pressure.
Puru’s try will stand out because it was his first in the NRL, but the more telling detail for Canterbury is how quickly the match moved beyond one score. Magic Round often rewards fast starts and punishes hesitation. On this day, Cronulla had the speed, the edge and the composure to pile on the damage, while the Bulldogs were left trying to keep the scoreboard from running away even further.
The result leaves the sharper question not around one isolated moment, but around whether Canterbury can stop this kind of collapse when the pressure starts to build. Against Cronulla, once the Sharks found their rhythm, the Bulldogs had no answer.
