Hooker Tom Starling woke up the morning after Canberra’s embarrassing loss to Penrith desperate to return to the training paddock to begin fixing their faltering season.
Reeling with a 1-4 win-loss record after the 53-12 obliteration against the Panthers, the Raiders are massive outsiders for their round-six clash with Brisbane.
They are bound for a thrashing by the unbeaten Broncos at Suncorp Stadium if there’s no improvement in their performance.
Starling feels their training sessions since the demolition job have improved but says only actions, not words, are needed now to win back their fans’ trust.
“It was a tough weekend, I just wanted to get back into training and fix up those things we’ve been getting wrong,” he said.
“We’re champing at the bit to get back out there and get our season back on track.
“We can’t sit here and make excuses and say all the right things, we’ve just got to go out and action that now and turn things around.
“Actions speak louder than words at the moment, we haven’t performed to our best, we’re nowhere near our best really.”
Canberra were beaten in every facet against the Panthers but will need to look to their forwards to lead them out of trouble moving forward.
Despite boasting a prop rotation that includes NZ international Joe Tapine and Samoa gun Josh Papali’i, and a second-row arsenal featuring rising star Hudson Young and captain Elliott Whitehead, the Raiders haven’t got 100-plus running metres from more than two players in any single match this season.
They’re also way down on offloads, limiting their ability to play their typical second-phase footy after finding just 7.2 offloads a game this year as compared with 11.6 last season.
Papali’i pointed out the Penrith game was only their second outing of the season with their full complement of forwards, but said only an 80-minute display would keep them in the hunt.
“We’re working, building those connections and just trying to get games under our belt,” he said.
“We’re gonna have to play for the full 80, we can’t just play for the first half and have a rest in the second.
“The test just gets harder with the Broncos this weekend, but it’s a challenge we’re looking forward to.
“We’re definitely a team that can play for 80 but the last few weeks, we’ve just being lapsing … those second-half errors and making teams not pay as much.”
But the Raiders were 2-6 in 2022 before a barnstorming finish saw them even win a final, a 12-4 extended run boosted early by back-to-back upset wins against finalists Cronulla and South Sydney in rounds 10 and 11.
Starling hoped Saturday’s Broncos encounter could provide a similar lift.
“We have to get ourselves out of this rut we’ve got into and (there’s) no better way to do it than up at Suncorp in front of a packed-out stadium … it’s backs against the wall against a really good Broncos unit,” he said.
By Alex Mitchell in Canberra
