{"id":155683,"date":"2025-09-20T02:36:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T02:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/155683\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T02:36:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T02:36:27","slug":"nrl-finals-2025-ethan-strange-ruled-out-in-bombshell-blow-for-canberra-raiders-cronulla-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/155683\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL Finals 2025: Ethan Strange ruled out in bombshell blow for Canberra Raiders, Cronulla Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Raiders have been dealt a crushing blow ahead of their semi-final contest against the Cronulla Sharks in Canberra on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Ethan Strange has been ruled out of the contest on Saturday morning (AEST) after falling ill overnight, according to the club.<\/p>\n

Watch every game of the NRL Telstra Premiership Finals Series before the Grand Final, LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 21-year-old five-eighth will not line up alongside his teammates in the do-or-die blockbuster at GIO Stadium.<\/p>\n

Simi Sasagi will take Strange\u2019s starting position while Matty Nicholson has been named on the bench.<\/p>\n

Strange has been one of the Raiders\u2019 best players all season long with the young playmaker voted as the brightest star in the NRL in a Code Sports <\/a>player survey.<\/p>\n

The vote was for players aged 20 years or under before June 30 and Strange was a standout selection among his peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he does play, it\u2019s almost like he\u2019s built of granite, but I think people underestimate his mental steel. For a playmaker so young, his mental strength is up there as well,\u201d Raiders skipper Joe Tapine said to Code Sports.<\/p>\n

The loss of Strange will be a devastating blow for the Raiders as they look to keep their finals hopes alive against the Sharks.<\/p>\n

The Raiders will be looking to avoid a straight-sets exit on Saturday night after winning the minor premiership and then losing in week one of the finals to the Brisbane Broncos in a game many experts described as the greatest finals game of all time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh did it all in the match that had fans across the country on the edge of their seat until the Broncos secured the 29-28 victory.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll lock horns with the Sharks who proved too strong for the Sydney Roosters in front of their home fans last weekend.<\/p>\n

The winner of tonight\u2019s contest will have only six days before they travel down to Melbourne and take on the Storm in a Friday night preliminary final<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Originally published as Canberra Raiders rocked as star ruled out for blockbuster final<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Raiders have been dealt a crushing blow ahead of their semi-final contest against the Cronulla Sharks in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,689,7292,103845,103843,2667,4532,4738,4565,30387,103846,2105,103844,88449,7287,27554,761,762,764,158,677,7291,85],"class_list":["post-155683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-capital-territory","tag-blockbuster-final","tag-bombshell-blow","tag-canberra","tag-canberra-raiders","tag-craig-fitzgibbon","tag-cronulla-sharks","tag-crushing-blow","tag-game-day-setback","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-horror-game-day","tag-james-mckern","tag-mark-nolan","tag-matty-nicholson","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-north-queensland-cowboys","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-ricky-stuart","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155683","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=155683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}