Triumphant Blues duo Hudson Young and Ethan Strange have been cleared to take on the Bulldogs on Saturday, while the Sharks will be without one of their State of Origin stars for the clash against the Dolphins.<\/p>\n
Canberra coach Ricky Stuart said his NSW players looked a lot better on Friday morning than they did on Thursday when they returned home following their celebrations after a famous win in Brisbane.<\/p>\n
Strange was in doubt for the decider after he picked up an ankle injury in camp, but he\u2019s been given the green light to back up along with Young, who was fantastic in all three games on the left edge. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t risk it (if he wasn\u2019t fine),\u201d Stuart said of his five-eighth who came on for the final 15 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t really even spoken too much about it, so he\u2019s fine to go. He got a few minutes on the field at the back end of the game, so he\u2019ll be right to play.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Hudson) got a bad whack to the back, so he was pretty sore yesterday. His three 80-minute performances were marvellous. He\u2019s been such a high contributor to the Blues. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s proven now to everyone that he\u2019s a main-stayer (at that level). He has such a high contribution and workload, his effort areas are very high off the football. It\u2019s everything you want in an Origin player.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaurie (Blues coach Laurie Daley) showed so much confidence in him, and when you show confidence in a player and a guy like Hudson, he\u2019ll repay you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stuart also said veteran Josh Papalii was a \u201creal chance to start\u201d in his first game back from a calf injury as the Raiders look to knock off the Bulldogs in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Sharks will have Blayke Brailey and Addin Fonua-Blake on deck after they played limited minutes off the bench for NSW.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019ll be missing Briton Nikora after he got through a mountain of work for the Maroons, with Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon backing Billy Burns to continue his stellar form on the right edge. <\/p>\n
\u201cBrit got knocked out around a bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had something like 49 tackles in about 65 minutes and had a category two HIA. For Brit\u2019s performance level, I really thought he put it out there the other night. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe won\u2019t be taking a risk with Brit. It\u2019s really simple for us the way that Billy Burns is playing at the moment. We trust Billy, and he\u2019s been one of our better performers.\u201d<\/p>\n