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Ricky Stuart's five-point plan for success

12th May, 2014
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Ricky Stuart was frustrated by Darren Lockyer more than once. (Photo by Colin Whelan copyright © nrlphotos.com)
Expert
12th May, 2014
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As rugby league’s greatest thinker, big things were expected of Ricky Stuart taking over as coach at the Canberra Raiders. Unfortunately the lime milk has begun to turn sour in the nation’s capital.

Back-to-back losses bigger than Sam Backo’s butt cheeks have begun to bring the heat just as things are supposed to be cooling down, and Stuart has been hauled before the board for a snap meeting later this week to outline exactly how he plans to jump-start the Green Machine.

While this might seem a trifle unfair – is it really Ricky’s fault his team doesn’t have the cattle/finances/rub of the green? – Stuart will undoubtedly showcase his famous determination and walk stoically into Raiders HQ with his battered overhead projector bearing some big plans to get his side a win against the Panthers this weekend.

Here’s five ideas I’d like to see him put forward.

Be more hostile
After two absolute shellackings, it’s likely many Canberra fans may wait for Floriade or drive around some big roundabouts this weekend rather than put themselves through the pain of watching a Raiders game live and run the risk of someone seeing them on the telecast.

This means numbers may be a little bit down, so why not copy some other clubs and move the fixture to the Raiders ‘retro’ spiritual home of Seiffert Oval?

It would be ace. The Panthers wouldn’t know what hit them as their team bus drives through downtown Queanbeyan East looking for the ground, and any fans that wanted to keep a low profile could just sit in the cars at the back of the hill and honk their horns at opportune moments.

Raiders amnesty
It’s no secret that the Raiders have sadly had to let a number of talented football players go over the years after massively breaching their dickhead cap.

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But Canberra is the sort of place which has drawn a pretty big crowd for an apology in the past, so why can’t they give all these trouble makers and loveable rogues a chance to come back to town – going around Goulburn of course – and say “We’re sorry”?

Don Furner Jr could then order a royal pardon with Jason Bulgarelli as the event poster boy. Before you know it the Raiders would have a team that you would want to watch, and the team manager would want to watch really, really closely on the flight home.

Look to the past
Most NRL clubs have some sort of heritage day where they’ll wear a jersey that fans actually like and celebrate a famous victory from yesteryear that they can bring up endlessly on internet chat forums.

Going back 20 years or so Canberra had a pretty crack team, so honouring one of these great sides would be a no-brainer.

And what better way to honour them than just throwing them a jersey and letting the 1990 side go round one more time?

Some of the lads might have blown out a bit, but with the number of ‘footballing’ brains in the side surely they’d still be capable of pulling out something special.

If nothing else, it would be nice to see Ricky have a run at Nigel Plum.

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Look to the future
Sorry what’s that? The Under-20s side lost by over 50 points? Ahh, moving along…

Try absolutely nothing
By and large the Raiders line-up this year has been very stable. Which would make sense if they were winning games, but at the moment seems like just one depressing foregone conclusion after another.

But despite this and the Raiders’ feeder teams in Mounties and Souths Logan showing some form this year, I’m hoping Ricky continues to pick the same 17 every weekend.

After all it is an odd year, so luck is bound to turn around for the lime green pretty soon. If things continue to slide then Stuart can just put the broom through the place at season’s end and everything will be looking rosy for 2015.

I mean, that’s what he did at Parra and just look how well they’re going now!

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