Ricky Stuart: Raiders not first grade standard

Adam Lucius
and others
• 2 min read
Ricky Stuart

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After watching his team stumble to an error-laden 34-18 loss to South Sydney on Monday night, an ashen-faced Stuart compared his team to reserve graders.   

"We made errors that I see in the NSW Cup or Q Cup," Stuart said.

"It's quite common throughout our season. If you don't complete your sets of six, you're on the back end of a tough day and that's exactly where we were.   

"We lacked patience. It wasn't first grade standard."

The Raiders sit second last with six rounds to go, just ahead of Cronulla on for and against.

And the bad news for Canberra fans is Stuart can't even start to look to next year by introducing some fresh faces. 

Asked if he would consider making changes, Stuart said:"I am but we haven't got many troops to make changes. Our second tier has run out (under the salary cap) so I can't bring any young blokes in to blood them, which is disappointing.

"It would be nice to give a couple of young blokes a bit of first grade experience but it's not their job to pull us out of this situation. We've got to do that ourselves." 

Captain Terry Campese had few answers to the debacle.

He said: "We just couldn't complete our sets. You can't play compete against a side like Souths (playing) like that.

"It's hard being out there. You're trying to have a bit of fun when you're playing footy but when you're defending like that...I don't think too many sides like defending as much as what we did.

"We have to be a lot better than that."

But the majority of fans levelled their anger at Stuart, questioning his coaching credentials. 

Author(s)
Adam Lucius