The Canberra Raiders are ready to “bounce back” in their match-up against the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks at home this weekend, says hooker Tom Starling.
Starling told CD the Sharks have built momentum with a string of recent wins heading into the back end of the regular season.
He said the opposition players to look out for this weekend are Nicho Hynes and Braydon Trindall in the halves, who Starling described as “pretty dangerous”.
And Sharks hooker Blayke Brailey — who leads the NRL in tackles in 2025 with 1,108 at 94.7 per cent efficiency — with Starling ranked eighth with 890 tackles at 91.6 per cent efficiency.
“I’m looking forward to the match-up against him,” Starling said.
“But then again, it all comes off their middle forward pack as well, they’ve got a really good forward pack — so we’re going to look to fight fire with fire.”
Starling said following last weekend’s sold-out clash with the Brisbane Broncos, Cronulla will be another exciting game in Canberra.
“It will be the same buzz around the place. It’s not the path that we wanted to go on, but it’s the path we’ve got to go now,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to the next three games.
“We do play some back-to-back games of footy and get into the grind again.”
While Starling said the team does not look at score predictions, “we obviously want to plan to try and win as big as possible”.
“But we know it’s going to be a tight game. So, it’ll be very similar to the weekend and with the momentum of games swinging and changing, it’s about how we handle that.
“But as I said, it’s going to be an awesome experience again out at GIO and Cronulla are going to come down here into enemy territory and look to knock us off.
“So, it’s exciting for the town and the club and I know I’m excited to play in another pretty big game like that and for it to be all eyes on us again.”
Looking back at the Raiders’ 29-28 finals loss to the Broncos, Starling was one of Canberra’s best and was on the field for the first 85 minutes.
“It was a pretty high-intensity game, and back-and-forth action, and obviously went to double overtime there,” Starling said.
“Look, it’s a tough pill to swallow after the game, but the boys have bounced back well, coming here with high energy.
“Sometimes the bounce of the ball doesn’t go our way, and a few things didn’t go our way, but the positive thing is the way we played — and we played some really good football — and the Broncos are a quality outfit.
“A pretty intense game but we’ve bounced back alright.”
Starling said in the post-match meeting with coach Ricky Stuart the team had a “pretty good chat in the sheds”.
“It was about how we put ourselves in the position that we get two bites of the cherry,” the hooker said.
“And this is what we worked so hard for all year to have two goes at it.
“Look, it was a bit disappointing. But as I mentioned, we’ve got to get back on the horse and get ready to go again because we’ve got a red-hot Cronulla side coming down here trying to knock us off.”
If the Raiders win, they will progress to a Preliminary Final against the Melbourne Storm at AAMI Park in Melbourne on Friday 26 September. If the Raiders lose, they are out of the finals.
