Ricky Stuart

Stuart rips Raiders over ‘toughness’ after heavy loss to Tigers

The Raiders conceded 48 points on Sunday afternoon.

Published by
Scott Pryde

Canberra Raiders head coach Ricky Stuart has ripped into his side over their disastrous loss to the Wests Tigers at Campbelltown Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

The Raiders conceded 48 points in the game, with it being their second straight defeat after losing at home to the North Queensland Cowboys last weekend.

Stuart's side has one of the competition's worst defences, and that was again at the fore on Sunday afternoon, with the Tigers running on 18 first-half points, before scoring another four tries in the 17 minutes directly after halftime.

2024-06-23T06:05:00Z
Campbelltown
WST
48
FT
24
CBR
Crowd: 10,106

Stuart said he couldn't put the loss into words, and that his side was lacking toughness.

"I can't," Stuart said when asked to put the loss into words.

"I'll have to go and have a look at it again, but you probably don't want to hear that."

"Tough people pull it back. Tough teams pull it back."

The Raiders have undoubtedly struggled with the start of games, and Stuart elaborated that his side was struggling mentally.

"Toughness. We aren't a tough football team at the moment," Stuart said when asked why his side were struggling to start matches.

"It's mental. That's an individual choice though. We have too many individual choices at the moment and are taking soft choices," Stuart said on how to fix his side.

The Raiders did add some respectability to the scoreboard late on, running on three tries in six minutes after Tigers' forward Alex Seyfarth was sin-binned, but he had no praise for his side.

"Don't see that [scoring points against 12] as any type of praise. If we can't score tries against 12 men, we are in a bad position and I just said the same thing to the boys in there. Don't get too excited about scoring a few tries at the back end. The game was over, they took their foot off the intensity and they had 12 men," he said.

"I've just spoken to the players [effort, attitude and intensity] in there about that. I'll leave it with them, but I'm certainly not coming in here to make any excuses."

Stuart also admitted changes could be on the way for the Raiders, with a tough trip to Melbourne for a clash with the Storm awaiting them next weekend.

2024-06-29T09:35:00Z
AAMI Park
MEL
16
FT
6
CBR
Crowd: 14,127
Published by
Scott Pryde