Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has taken fresh aim at those who doubted his decision to rest soon-to-be 300-gamer Jarrod Croker after the call was vindicated by Friday’s tight win over Wests Tigers.
Last week’s defeat of South Sydney was Croker’s 299th first-grade game and the veteran centre had been set to become only the second man to reach 300 Raiders games when the side met the Tigers.
But after the Rabbitohs game, Stuart announced he would omit Croker for the clash against the Tigers at Campbelltown Stadium.
That way, Croker would be able to celebrate his milestone match in front of Canberra’s home fans the following week.
“What I did was the right thing by all our Canberra fans,” Stuart said.
“They would’ve bought their tickets, the poor buggers would’ve had to come down here after work to see Jarrod play 300. But no, I did the right thing.”
After a tough run of injuries, Croker has been in the Raiders’ best 17 since being recalled to the first-grade side in round six so Stuart faced criticism for fielding an understrength team against a Tigers side on the rise.
But with Harley Smith-Shields switching to centre in Croker’s place, the Raiders’ left edge remained in sync as the side ran out to a 20-19 win.
Stuart believed leaving Croker out of the side had taken a level of leadership unknown to his detractors.
“When you’re in leadership, you’ve got to take a risk,” he said.
“I was going to cop it from every one of you (the media) in here tonight if we had’ve got beaten. But I was prepared to take the risk. That’s leadership, not these other muppets, who pretend they know.
“These muppets who have been bagging me, they’re all the guys who will read the textbooks and talk about courageous leadership, man management and they’ll go out and talk at corporate functions but they can’t execute it.
“They’re not the people I want in my football team, they’re not the people I want in the trenches with me. There wasn’t a player tonight that didn’t want Jarrod to have his 300th game at home.”
“I was open and honest (about resting Croker), which I was probably wrong to be open and honest. I may as well just lie.”
Croker becomes only the second Raiders player to reach 300 games and the first to do so on home soil after distant relative Jason Croker brought up the triple-century against Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium in 2006.
Stuart heralded the significance of the impending milestone.
“This will be one of the biggest events we’ve had for a player in Canberra,” he said.
“We get nothing, the Raiders get nothing, we’re battlers.
“We’re happy to be proud of it but we’ll have a great event this week and Jarrod Croker deserves everything that he gets next weekend.”
By Jasper Bruce in Sydney
