The Canberra Raiders insist it’s ‘business as usual’ even as they deal with one of the most unprecedented weeks in NRL history with coach Ricky Stuart banned from communicating with the team.
Three assistant coaches – Andrew McFadden, Brett White and Mick Crawley – will share the head role in Stuart’s absence against St George Illawarra on Sunday as the mentor serves a one-game ban for calling Penrith half Jaeman Salmon “a weak-gutted dog”.
But the Raiders trained strongly on Thursday ahead of their must-win clash, McFadden telling reporters Stuart’s absence wouldn’t change the side’s preparation.
Canberra are one match and considerable point differential behind the eighth-placed Sydney Roosters with four games to play and almost certainly need to win all of their remaining matches to have any chance of playing finals.
“It’s business as usual in terms of the way we operate,” McFadden said.
“We’ve got a pretty big hand on things in terms of assistant coaches with training anyway, Ricky’s very good at giving us that responsibility.
“We’re just working through that and we’ll divvy up all the other stuff.
“Every game is do or die now, we’ve got to keep winning … it’s very important we get back on track after a disappointing loss last week.”
Senior Raider Jack Wighton agreed and said the assistants were up to the task.
“It’s the same as every week. … we were trying to take a lot of ownership this year and guide the young fellas,” he told reporters.
“We’ve got three assistant coaches there that have been around for many years … you could never doubt none of them.
“Through the week the assistant coaches do most of the work anyway.”
Asked if the senior players wanted to win the game for Stuart who became the first coach to be banned for comments made at a press conference, Wighton said the team would treat the match as routinely as possible.
“The cards have been dealt and it’s something we can’t change, as a rugby league player you realise through your career a lot of things change on the spot,” he said.
“You have people go down on game day and you’ve just got to deal with it.
“This is just one of those things and to be fair, we’ve had a week to deal with it and put it behind us basically.”
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