{"id":645583,"date":"2026-05-02T20:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T20:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645583\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T20:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T20:47:15","slug":"ricky-stuart-press-conference-canberra-raiders-vs-gold-coast-titans-round-9-joe-tapine-ethan-sanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645583\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricky Stuart press conference, Canberra Raiders vs Gold Coast Titans, Round 9, Joe Tapine, Ethan Sanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ricky Stuart admitted some of his players are not ready for NRL, but praised his leaders for carrying the load after his side\u2019s impressive victory over the Titans in Round 9<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Stuart challenged his players to come up with individual performances amid an injury crisis to turn around their slow start to the season and they answered in a 28-12 victory over the Titans. <\/p>\n

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The Raiders have struggled with errors and discipline this season, but they put in their first 80 minute performance of the year to dominate the Titans. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just visualised all week that we just had to play footy,\u201d Stuart said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t about what position you were playing in. It wasn\u2019t going to be pretty. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought our first 25 minutes for a team that\u2019s lacked a bit of cohesion with positional changes as late as on Thursday with Ethan dropping out and Daine Laurie jumping in there who did a wonderful job for us. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou practice all off-season for combinations and it\u2019s not just us, a few teams that have had a little bit of disruption with injuries. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese boys are handling the challenge. We knew there was a challenge on and we just had to love it more than the opposition did, and they did. They were Raiders today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuart conceded some of his players are not ready for NRL amid the club\u2019s injury woes, but backed them to do a job if called upon. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t slow it down,\u201d Stuart said when asked if the experience at a young age his accelerating their development. <\/p>\n

Weekes shines as Raiders beat Titans | 02:12<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting wins like that whilst you\u2019re teaching young players who are playing very limited seasons or games it does accelerate it in the furnace. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had 18 and 19 men today, Ethan Alaia and Jordan Uta. If I had told them they were going to be Round 9 sitting on the bench at 18 and 19, they would have laughed at me. \u201cThey\u2019re not ready for NRL yet, but I\u2019ve got confidence in them that they can do a job if they were playing today. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re football players, but they\u2019re not ready for NRL. Too many managers rush kids today. I can\u2019t rush them. They\u2019ll play when they\u2019re ready.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ethan Sanders was the star of the game with three linebreak assists and two try assists and Stuart praised his young halfback post match after he stepped up in the absence of Ethan Strange. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just getting better,\u201d Stuart said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know he cops a lot of criticism. I remember where I was 11 games in and it was nowhere near his standard. <\/p>\n

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Joe Tapine and Ricky Stuart.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will just kept getting better and there\u2019s parts of his game we\u2019re trying to eliminate out of him. There\u2019s parts of his game that he has to continue with because it will make him a better player. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut he\u2019s nowhere near the finished product. Where he will be in two years\u2019 time is going to be a very smart, dominating halfback.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stuart reserved special praise for his forwards, who stepped up in the absence of Hudson Young and Joe Roddy, who broke his hand in the first half against the Titans. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday when I said we played like Raiders, I put it on every individual,\u201d Stuart said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a team performance. It had to come from individuals and that was going to create the team performance. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Joey Roddy broke his hand, Ata Mariota had to go to back row, which luckily he trained there for most of the week because Simi couldn\u2019t train. <\/p>\n

Get all the latest NRL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n

Hannay: “It feels like a step back!” | 05:48<\/p>\n

\u201cI had three middles and Joe Tapine, Corey Horsburgh and Morgan Smithies, they lead the team today and Joe\u2019s leadership as a captain was as good as I\u2019ve seen.\u201d <\/p>\n

Raiders skipper Joe Tapine paid tribute to partner in crime Corey Horsburgh, who set himself the challenge to step up without Young in the team. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been unreal,\u201d Tapine said of Horsburgh. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big challenge for us. A lot of boys out and a lot of experience, but it\u2019s about the jumper and not who wears it. So he stepped up really big and really proud of him.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ricky Stuart admitted some of his players are not ready for NRL, but praised his leaders for carrying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4426,64,63,160813,4532,4457,4525,4516,6094,4612,26120,1809,104452,312354,18387,27146,312355,4746,97280,7291,146122,85,97276,57847,19121],"class_list":["post-645583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ata-mariota","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-breakout-star","tag-canberra-raiders","tag-corey-horsburgh","tag-daine-laurie","tag-ethan-sanders","tag-football-players","tag-gold-coast-titans","tag-green-machine","tag-injury-crisis","tag-joe-tapine","tag-joey-roddy","tag-josh-hannay","tag-linebreak-assists","tag-managers-rush","tag-mark-st-john","tag-raiders-skipper","tag-ricky-stuart","tag-slow-start","tag-sports","tag-stuart-press-conference","tag-team-performance","tag-young-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645583","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=645583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}