In a test of strength versus stamina, the Canberra Raiders vied with the World Champion Australian Rowing Team this week in some good-old-fashioned friendly rivalry.
On Monday 9 January, the teams huddled into the Canberra Raiders training facility and were challenged by each other’s skill sets – a 1500m race on the rowing machine and a goal kicking competition.
The Rowing Team unsurprisingly thrashed the NRL players in the rowing race, but Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Alex Purnell said they weren’t 100 per cent confident they’d come out on top.
“That really short-burst effort really plays in the Raiders’ hands. So, they’re very, very big strong boys and we’re more aerobic endurance athletes,” Purnell said.
“I think coming into it, we thought it’d be pretty 50/50 because these Raiders players are very strong, very powerful so they’d be able to muscle it down whereas we’d be a little bit weaker and a bit more for the endurance side of things.
“So, I think we might have just got them on the technique but in terms of the pure strength, they certainly outmuscled us. So that was a good tussle and very enjoyable.”
Conversely, in the goal kicking competition, the Rowing Team thought some of the boys showed some technique, but the Raiders easily cleaned up.
The collaboration between the elites brings two professional sporting squads based in Canberra together, in an effort to unite as athletes and learn from one another’s unique skill sets.
Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Caleb Antill said there’s some “die-hard” Raiders fans in the Rowing Team and it’s a sea of green during their ‘Footy Jersey Friday’.
“It’s been awesome to have two of Canberra’s professional sporting teams come together and network and share ideas and have a look at their awesome facility here,” Antill said.
“Being a Canberran, and growing up in Canberra, I’ve always been a big Raiders supporter, so it’s been great to come and meet some of the fellas and learn a thing or two from them.”
Purnell is one of the self-proclaimed Raiders fans on the Rowing Team, and during the last few moments of the Olympic final in Tokyo he could be heard yelling “do it for the Raiders!” to his teammates – seconds before they won gold.
Canberra Raiders winger James Schiller was impressed by the rowers’ world-class skills and vowed he won’t be challenging them to another race anytime soon.
“When they started, the bloke next to me was going – he was just pacing, no problem in the world – and we’re all there nearly snapping the thing; I fell off my seat about seven times,” laughed Schiller.
The men from both teams rallied around the remaining Raider, forming a cheer squad to motivate his finish – a testament of sportsmanship, said Schiller.
“I think that just shows the mateship that sport brings to each team and even the rower boys were getting behind us footy boys and same out there on the field when they were kicking,” he said.
“It’s just really good to see the positivity, especially in the tough time preseason, it really lifts energy.”
The potential for future combined training and coaching sessions seems to be on the horizon for the two teams, and Schiller said it’s only fair the Raiders visit the Rowing Team’s training centre next.
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