Canberra Raiders News

Stuart criticizes Canberra's lack of toughness, poor defense and slow starts in NRL season.

Canberra Weekly

Ricky Stuart has accused Canberra of lacking toughness, claiming his players are taking too many soft options as their NRL season slips away.

Their 48-24 loss to Wests Tigers on Sunday continued a worrying run for the Raiders, who now have the fourth-worst defensive record in the competition.

Sunday's flogging at Campbelltown also marked another slow start, down 18-0 before halftime and 42-8 in the second half before three late tries while the Tigers had a man in the sin-bin.

The Raiders have now found themselves in similar positions in six of their last eight games, regularly having to play from behind after leaking early...

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Ricky Stuart was disappointed in his team's performance in Round 16 loss to Tigers.

Fox League

Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was extremely unhappy with his side's performance in their Round 16 loss to the Wests Tigers.

Asked in the post-game press conference about his side's recent slow starts, Stuart explained Canberra are "not a tough football team at the moment."

Stuart's side were out of the contest from pretty much the opening minutes of the game, with Lachlan Galvin scoring the Tigers' first try in the third minute.

By half-time, Canberra were down 18-2, though the deficit could have been greater given the Tigers had three tries disallowed in the first 40.

It was much of the same in the second half, with Benji Marshall's side scoring the second period's first four tries, including one right after the interval.

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Tigers dominated Raiders until sin bin, but Doueihi's intercept try secured win for Tigers.

League Unlimited

The Tigers looked to be cruising to one of their most comfortable and impressive wins in recent memory, leading the Raiders 42-8, before a sin bin flipped the game on its head as Canberra scored three tries in six minutes.

But Adam Doueihi, playing his first game in the NRL in 441 days, iced the win with an intercept try in the 73rd minute to snuff out Canberra's comeback and celebrate his return in style.

Sunday's game opened in bizarre fashion as the Raiders were gifted the first try-scoring opportunity off a Jahream Bula error, quickly finding an overlap on the left edge only for Brent Naden to intercept an Ethan Strange pass and turn defence into attack.

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