Wests Tigers broke their three-game losing run with a 22-16 win over Canterbury at CommBank Stadium on Saturday, and the Bulldogs' former playmaker Lachlan Galvin felt every second of it. He was booed and jeered on every touch from start to finish as the Tigers turned a charged reunion into a result that mattered far more than the noise.
The scoreboard told the story early. Jeral Skelton crossed after four minutes, Faaletino Tavana finished off a Jock Madden bomb, and Jahream Bula dotted down off a Kai Pearce-Paul offload to send the Tigers to halftime with a 16-6 lead. Canterbury briefly threatened to drag the match back when Jacob Kiraz scored in the 37th minute and Enari Tuala cut the margin again in the second half, but the home side could never quite level it.
The moment that nearly changed everything came with 25 minutes to go, when Josh Curran appeared to have scored to draw Canterbury level after regathering his charge-down of a Luai kick. The try never stood. Replays showed he had made the slightest of contact with Jarome Luai's legs before the ball was blown dead, and the Tigers kept their advantage alive when Jock Madden added a penalty goal with 20 minutes left.
Galvin, who walked out on Benji Marshall's side nearly a year ago to move to Belmore because he felt he would not improve under the coach, was then awarded a 70th-minute try that underlined how mixed the afternoon had become for him. Canterbury still could not finish the job. Late on, Luai jolted the ball loose from Sitili Tupouniua to seal the Tigers' victory before 17,505 fans, a crowd that made plain how personal this meeting still is.
The result leaves Canterbury with just one win in their last six and a 4-8 record in 2026, while the Tigers can finally reset after a run that had begun to drag them down. Since Galvin arrived, Canterbury have won just 38 per cent of their games, and Saturday's loss only deepened the sense that the move has not delivered the lift they wanted. What comes next is less clear: the Tigers have the points, Galvin has the boos, and the only unanswered question left is whether Luai will face any discipline for the incident that helped deny Canterbury their chance to draw level.
