The Raiders' already heavily disrupted pre-season will take another hit for their second and final trial on Friday evening against the Manly Sea Eagles.
The Raiders, who were forced to suspend operations for a number of days before Christmas as COVID ripped through the squad in the nation's capital, will now play their final tune up for the regular season without Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Jordan Rapana, Sam Williams and Matt Frawley, who are all in isolation.
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Williams and Frawley were late withdrawals from the Raiders first up trial victory over the Sydney Roosters at Leichhardt on Friday evening, with Williams returning a positive test and Frawley being his roommate.
That had already led the Raiders to investigate the idea of giving each player their own room on road trips, while the NRL are also still undecided on whether to move back to fly in, fly out arrangements on chartered flights for teams this year with no overnight accommodation.
While Williams and Frawley will still both be in isolation on Friday, the Raiders have now also lost Rapana and Nicoll-Klokstad, according to a Canberra Times report, and have also elected to travel by car to the Central Coast, where they are holding a training camp ahead of Friday's upcoming second trial.
The club decided that loading the team onto a bus for more than four hours was simply too great of a risk. Under current government health regulations, a close contact needing to isolate is determined by spending four or more hours in an enclosed space with a confirmed positive case during their infectious period.
Raiders general manager Matt Ford told the publication the club had "learnt some lessons."
"We intended to bus it up ... but after Friday night we learnt some lessons and one of them was if the Williams scenario presented itself technically that could deem the whole squad as close contacts because of the length of time spent together," he said.
"It's close enough to be too risky so we just made the decision on Saturday we were much better having everyone carpool up privately, take that risk away."
The Raiders also confirmed to the publication the issue of single rooms and costs were still being discussed, with the NRL as yet bringing in no policy to protect players against the close contact rule.
The loss of Nicoll-Klokstad for Friday night's trial is particularly frustrating for coach Ricky Stuart and his coaching staff, with the star fighting for the number one jersey with young gun Xavier Savage.
Kick-off is scheduled for 6pm against the Sea Eagles.
