Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has lifted the lid on the honesty session between senior players and staff that started their rise to September football in 2022.
The Raiders have taken the hard road this season coming form 15th at one stage early in their campaign to squeak into the finals in eighth spot in the final round of the regular season.
Stuart revealed to The Sydney Morning Herald’s Andrew Webster that an honesty session in the pre-season brought his team closer together for what they didn’t know would be a very tough season on route to the finals.
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“I won’t go into it,” coach Ricky Stuart told The Herald before opening up on the honesty session.
“We’re all great mates. There was no hate, we just needed to reconnect.”
Stuart considers himself a player’s coach, but he noticed a disconnect with some of his senior players last year.
Josh Hodgson wanted out of the club, George Williams wanted to return to the UK and prop Joseph Tapine’s wife, Kirsten criticised Stuart’s forward rotation via social media.
Stuart never lost the dressing room, but he admits there were some unhappy players within it.
During the 2022 pre-season, Stuart took some of his senior players and staff, booked them into a hotel and had some honest conversations about where the team and the dressing room was at.
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“We just laid it all out onto the table,” Stuart said.
“I took them away for a night and we had a three-hour conference then a beer and a feed after it.
“I don’t want to get into how we did it, but we laid it all out on the table and we had a very, very honest communication among all 16 of us.
“Some key staff, some key senior players. It was the first day of reconnecting and learning more about each other.”
Despite the crucial pre-season meeting, the Raiders’ season went anything but to plan, especially early in their 2022 campaign.
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The Raiders won two of their first three games, but then lost five straight to sit anchored to the bottom of the table after eight rounds.
However, not once did the team’s or Stuart’s belief waver and the club has been on a steady incline all the way back to the top eight ever since.
Stuart said he leaned on his close mates inside and outside the club and the playing group to get through the tough moments.
“You know who your mates are in tough times,” Stuart said.
“I’m lucky with that — away from the club and inside it as well.
“We had a real tough start to the season. Not a lot of people had much faith in us. Our playing group did. We knew who our mates were.”
Now the Raiders travel to AAMI Park to take on the Storm on Sunday for a chance to make the semi-finals, which would be unthinkable for anyone but the team itself after Round 8.
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