How do we fix: Canberra Raiders

Big Pete

Big Pete

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New thread idea inspired from watching a replay of the Tigers/Raiders game.

Raiders are basically done for season 2014. It's been a terrible year for them and has been very little to cheer about, especially when a bunch of high profile players basically made them look foolish by baulking at their offers at the last minute.

So in the interest of a competitive competition and making sure that every game is as competitive as it would be, how would you fix the Canberra Raiders in terms of personnel.

As far as this season goes, I believe they need to go with something like this...

1. Anthony Milford
2. Jeremy Hawkins
3. Jarrod Croker
4. Jack Wighton
5. Brenko Lee
6. Terry Campese
7. Mitchell Cornish
8. David Shillington
9. Glenn Buttriss
10. Paul Vaughan
11. Jarrod Kennedy
12. Josh Papalii
13. Shaun Fensom

14. Kurt Baptiste
15. Patrick Mago
16. Dane Tilse
17. Shannon Boyd

Basically, give Cornish a chance for the rest of the season. Nothing to lose and the guy is better than McCrone so just drop the act.

Wingers could be anything really but don't think you can have both Allwood and Brenko there. Hawkins was always a more natural winger than Matty so him give him a shot. If Brenko doesn't improve then just bring him back down and give Robinson a chance again, no foul really, a taste is all Brenko needs this year.

White needs a stint in reggies. They can toy with the Shillo's partner and bring Boyd in if they want to use two big boppers early, but Vaughan is going to get longer stints anyways and I'm just reflecting that on paper. Tilse is another player I could do without but didn't want to throw too many names in when I'm not overly confident as is.

Buttriss can play the Morris/Kingston role for Baptiste who I believe is a better hooker than McCrone and should get better with more gametime. If Baptiste goes crap, blood Ahearn.

Mago could be any rookie really but Mago is a good talent and better than a lot of players they have coming through so give him a shot.

Haven't thought too far ahead but I'm sure some brilliant posters on here can handle that. If you were arm-chair coaching, what would their team look like?
 
- Get rid of Furner.
- Make Furner take Sticky with him.
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- Daylight
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- Get a management team capable of cleaning up that joint and get rid of the Furner stink and shit culture.
- Get a coach capable of dealing with and developing youngsters.
- Dump McCrone and White to the Mounties, to play with Robinson.
- Pair Cornish with Milford in the halves and trial Ahern at custodian to see if he can cope with the rigors of FG, while building a bit of a combo with Cornish...
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- Move away from Australia's arsehole.
 
Get rid of anyone:

With the surname Furner
Who is related to anyone with the surname Furner
Who is friends with anyone with the surname Furner.
Who is Ricky Stuart
Who was hired by Ricky Stuart.
 
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Move them to Gosford and tell them to sink or swim.
 
They just re-signed McCrone, they're not dropping him for Cornish.
 
They need to develop Cornish he has the talent to be a good first grader.

Both their halves are liabilities and Ricky needs to drop McCrone and put Cornish in his place.
 
The way Cornish played against us, I think he needs to move away from Canberra, or he'll end up shitty for sure.
 
I really dont know what the answer is and I cant see a time where things will improve

They need to do so many things to even begin to get better, and I don't think they have even identified them yet... let alone prepared to do it.

Furner needs to go
Sticky needs to go, **** he should never have been bought. It's like they identified the one way to get worse and signed it. It still amazes me, sign a wooden spoon coach and then be surprised when you get wooden spoon results

I think they need to basically start with a clean slate, new coach, new CEO and identify the guys you currently have that you want to keep then clean out the rest.
 
[MENTION=1899]Big Pete[/MENTION], I'm sure you were hoping for a little more open discussion than this, but sadly mate, there's not a lot to discuss.

I said a couple weeks ago in the Round discussion thread that Canberra were one of the worst teams I've seen play the game for some years. I'll stand by that. They have a good roster on paper - the likes of Shillington, White, Campese, Wighton, Milford.

Honestly, I think their forward pack are pretty decent. Shillington has really been putting in for the last few weeks and I think Vaughan and Boyd have been good impact for them off the bench. Their problems, to me at least, seem to be coming from the Halves and the backline. Campese is well past it. The guy tries hard, you can see, he's still got a mean boot on him, but for whatever reason his last tackle plays are mostly horrid. Combine this will the plodder McCrone and you get zero creativity, ala Broncos circa ~final half of 2012.

I won't go into their off field problems because I don't know enough about how the club operates to do so. I will however comment on the coach. The coach needs to lead by example, set the example and expectations for his team. Ricky Stuart is hopeless at all of this. Often at post match conferences he blames the Refs, or labels his side not up to first grade standard yet. How do you expect a bunch of young blokes to play for someone who has an attitude like that?

As the others have said, the place needs a clean out, starting right at the top. I think on paper, their team is competitive, bar a few minor changes in personnel. Start with the top and I think the rest sorts itself out.
 
We don't fix Canberra. They need to offload the dead wood but they've just re-signed McCrone FFS. They will continue to unearth good young talent so they will need to be patient and hope like hell the young blokes want to stay in Canberra.
 
On paper he's a Test player.

In reality he's a dud but that's what Brett was getting at.

They need to get rid of him basically for Fensom's sake since they've moved him to the left fringe when really he's much better in the middle.
 
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Don Furner & Ricky Stuart have to be removed.

Simple as that, Raiders fans always bang on about the QLC not having to answer to anyone so they're part of the problem as well.
 
Alec said:
Really?
Click to expand...

Pretty much what Pete said. On paper, their team sounds great and they have good cattle. On the field though, it's a totally different story, for the reasons I eluded to in my other post - leadership, amongst others.
 
Big Pete said:
Haven't thought too far ahead but I'm sure some brilliant posters on here can handle that. If you were arm-chair coaching, what would their team look like?
Click to expand...

I think your team is as good as they have right now for the remainder of the season and at this stage it is getting too late to make any major changes for next year.
At best they should target some average to solid first graders that are still off contract, for e.g Tom Symonds just to help clear out some of the dead wood and break up that roster that has been together a while and is getting stale. They should also look to be creative around who is available/home sick (or make them) in the ESL (Luke Walsh, Mose Masoe) and also be ready to pounce on any players in other NRL clubs that are on the outer with their club (Inu?)

The re-signings of McCrone would be tough for Raiders fans to take and i personally don't think it is the right thing to do but i can see why it was done, they were just rejected by 4 or 5 first graders and they have to fill the 25 man roster somehow.

Who knows how close they were to getting all 4 of Tedesco, Mansour, Proctor and Ennis. If they had they would have good reason to be optimistic about next year, would have been a cruel blow to Raiders fans missing out on all of them.

Their achilies heal is the worse spine in the game, and it will only be weaker in 2015 when Milford is not there. If Stuart is any kind of coach he should pick his remaining 2014 and 2015 squads based on attitude, committment, desire and pride and enforce those values as they are not going to compete with many clubs, if any, on pure skill.
 
I think the problem stems way beyond Stuart. They should be premiership favourites next year with a roster featuring Todd Carney, Black Ferguson, Josh Dugan, Anthony Milford, Jack Wighton and Jarrod Croker their all star backs. But they have had massive problems with their star juniors behaviour and juniors are all they have because absolutely nobody in the world wants to play for the Raiders. I think more aptly though, nobody wants to live in Canberra. Milford proves that, and with Brenko Lee almost leaving last year it's no wonder the Raiders pulled out of Logan.

I actually have a huge amount of sympathy for them. They've produced a lot of good juniors and made key off the field developments like Logan but have **** all to show for it. Frankly I think they're borderline unfixable.
 
They can't change their location so they need to look at what they can fix.

Furner signed Stuart, a guy who hasn't been able to get his teams to win back to back games since June 7th, 2009.
 
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