Few have experienced the highs and lows of rugby league like Raiders coach Ricky Stuart.
Never has that been more true than in Canberra’s abysmal 40-0 loss to Cronulla in Stuart’s 500th game as an NRL coach on Sunday.
Stuart was quick to the point after the match, labelling his team’s performance “embarrassing”.
“Too many missed tackles, there was a lot of very poor football,” Stuart said. “I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful to you guys [with short answers], I don’t really feel like dwelling on much of it at the moment.”
Stand-in skipper Joseph Tapine was ashamed the team didn’t rise to the occasion.
“We were just poor. It’s hard for me to comment because I was poor as well,” he said. “A couple of uncharacteristic misses and just didn’t turn up. We had a lot to play for today and just didn’t turn up,” Tapine said.
The Sharks were relentless in the nation’s capital against Canberra.Credit: Getty
“I think we’ve been coached well, it’s just us as a playing group will have a chat tomorrow about attitude and how we’re going to approach next week.”
The Sharks were impressive, and so was their halfback Nicho Hynes, who had a 40/20, two intercepts, two try assists and 16 points to his name by the end of the night.
Coach Craig Fitzgibbon said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Hynes in a NSW jumper in this year’s State of Origin series. “There’s a nice balance to his game at the moment,” Fitzgibbon said. “We all know he can make really nice plays, he’s obviously got the talent and the skill there, but I thought he’s knuckled down, and his defence is more important. I think it’s as good as I’ve seen him defend at the moment, so he wouldn’t be out of place [in Origin].”
There were some obvious difficulties for Stuart’s team heading into the contest, with a rookie halves pairing after Jamal Fogarty ruptured his biceps last week, but the truth is Cronulla were better in all parts of the game.
Nicho Hynes was at his best against Canberra.Credit: Getty
They had more run metres, more line breaks, more tackle breaks and more offloads.
Fitzgibbon was modest in his assessment of the game.
“It was hard-fought, I know the score got away from them [the Raiders] in the end, but they had a lot of reasons to turn up today and I thought they were quite physical,” he said.
“They had to earn everything they got, but I thought we controlled the game really well. It’s a difficult place to come and get a win, so [I’m] pretty pleased.”
Stuart said he had to acknowledge how inexperienced his team was with the likes of Fogarty, Elliott Whitehead and Jordan Rapana in the casualty ward.
“I didn’t expect at this stage of the season, having to play so many of them [young players] all together,” he said.
“When you have a look at, and please don’t see this as an excuse because those young boys are all good football players … but when you’ve got so many games sitting on the sidelines, so much experience sitting on the sidelines, it just makes the job so much harder to play first grade for those younger players. They’re hurting in there, and I’m hurting for them.”
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