{"id":124553,"date":"2025-09-07T02:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124553\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T02:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:39:07","slug":"raiders-demand-finals-fairness-as-stuart-pushes-for-sunday-slot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124553\/","title":{"rendered":"Raiders demand finals fairness as Stuart pushes for Sunday slot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canberra coach Ricky Stuart has called for the NRL to hand the Raiders a Sunday afternoon qualifying final, insisting the minor premiers deserve a fair shake in week one of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>The league will confirm the opening weekend schedule after the regular season wraps up following the Knights trip down the M1 to play the Eels; however the Raiders have already begun mounting their case.<\/p>\n<p>Canberra close their campaign against the Dolphins on Sunday, while Brisbane had the luxury of a Thursday fixture.<\/p>\n<p>That sets up a potential six-day turnaround for the Raiders compared to nine for the Broncos if the game lands in the Saturday primetime slot.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/rugby-league\/news\/nrl-judiciary-round-27-asofa-solomonas-season-jeopardy-after-careless-high-shot\/1ed44f034adfcaab802bdfb4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Hynes charge rocks Sharks; Asofa-Solomona&#8217;s season in jeopardy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Should the minor premiers get to decide when they play?<\/p>\n<p>Whilst the NRL faces a delicate balancing act in deciding next week&#8217;s schedule, Ricky Stuart was steadfast in his stance that the minor premiers should get to decide when they play.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019re minor premiers, we need the maximum turnaround possible from the Sunday game,&#8221; said Stuart in a recent <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.raiders.com.au\/news\/2025\/09\/06\/coachs-comment-round-27\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">media availability.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Resting players is one thing, but I\u2019ve still got players playing tomorrow that will be playing next week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019re going to be playing against a team that\u2019s got nine days [rest] so it\u2019s an unbelievable advantage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That one extra day is what we deserve for being minor premiers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Scheduling the Raiders-Broncos showdown on Sunday would hand Canberra the extra day they seek, but it would also shorten the loser&#8217;s turnaround heading into week two.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, if the Warriors&#8217; elimination final against Penrith is slotted for Saturday, it risks clashing with the All Blacks&#8217; Test against South Africa in Wellington &#8211; a significant broadcasting headache.<\/p>\n<p>Stuart, however, is focused on ensuring his side isn&#8217;t disadvantaged at the start of their premiership push.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019ve earned the right to get that Sunday game,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canberra coach Ricky Stuart has called for the NRL to hand the Raiders a Sunday afternoon qualifying final,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-124553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}