{"id":383888,"date":"2026-04-17T08:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383888\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T08:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:01:11","slug":"canberra-raiders-star-tom-starling-sends-reminder-to-rest-of-the-competition-savelio-tamale-dropped-to-reserve-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383888\/","title":{"rendered":"Canberra Raiders star Tom Starling sends reminder to rest of the competition, Savelio Tamale dropped to reserve grade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Raiders hooker Tom Starling has praised the selfless act of a teammate who requested his own demotion from first grade, saying it highlights the ultimate team-first culture built under Ricky Stuart.<\/p>\n<p>Canberra host the Melbourne Storm on Friday night, with Starling believing his team can banish the demons of last year\u2019s NRL finals heartache and get their 2026 season underway in earnest with a victory.<\/p>\n<p>Watch every game of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au\/en-AU\/welcome\/nrl?pg=default&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkleague-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-nrl-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Raiders will be without winger Savelio Tamale, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/nrl\/nrl-premiership\/nrl-2026-round-7-late-mail-teams-ins-and-outs-selections-analysis-tigers-jock-madden-news\/news-story\/b00192f09d52c9b8047449b671e06b5f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">approached Stuart mid-week requesting to be dropped to NSW Cup<\/a> while he rekindles his confidence. <\/p>\n<p>Starling joined the chorus of Canberra support for a young player putting the team ahead of himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all love Sav, he\u2019s going to have a stellar career and he\u2019s going to be an international,\u201d Starling reflected. \u201cHe\u2019s got a big career ahead of him. He will be back, he will get his confidence back up and will be back with us in no time,\u201d Starling told foxsports.com.au.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the culture that Sticky\u2019s built here. It\u2019s about the team, putting the team first. A lot of the players are like that. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cStick goes above and beyond for everyone. He\u2019s a real player\u2019s coach and he looks after everyone. I\u2019m sure you could go speak to everyone one in our team, Stick has gone above and beyond for every one of us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe try to repay him the best we can, with good performances and by being the best player and teammate that we can. It shows the maturity in Sav, and the conversation he can have with his coach, and how comfortable he is in speaking to Stick about that. It was really brave of Savvy to do that \u2013 a lot of players wouldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Raiders hooker Tom Starling.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The Raiders are two wins from their first six matches this NRL season, boasting a new-look squad that is yet to reach the lofty form that carried the side to a minor premiership in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>However, Starling believes Canberra has turned a corner following last week\u2019s high-scoring win against the Rabbitohs. He has credited the Raider\u2019s burgeoning spine combination and the steady hand of Stuart \u2013 and is adamant the best is yet to come.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not hitting the panic buttons just yet,\u201d Starling said ahead of tonight\u2019s clash at GIO Stadium. \u201cWe know when we get our style of play, we\u2019re hard to handle. We believe we\u2019re the best team in the comp when we put our game on \u2013 it\u2019s just a matter of fact of doing that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s quite an easy fix to be honest with you: there are areas of the game where we\u2019re not executing. We need to be much better. It\u2019s the simple things \u2013 finishing our sets off well and making sure we\u2019re winning our contact.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got a sense of urgency to get better and we know we\u2019re right there. We know with one game we can turn our season around and get better. That\u2019s sort of what we did last weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Get all the latest NRL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/newsletter-sign-up?utm_source=NRLArticle&amp;utm_medium=TextLink&amp;utm_campaign=signup\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>FULL FIELD: Kaeo stuns with winning try | 02:05<\/p>\n<p>Canberra is coming to grips with a new-look spine this season headed by debutant half Ethan Sanders. The 22-year-old came into the starting squad at the beginning of the year to replace Manly-bound Jamal Fogarty, with incumbent five-eighth Ethan Sanders switching sides to accommodate Sanders\u2019 left boot.<\/p>\n<p>Starling said Canberra displayed their \u201cbest half of footy all year\u201d in the opening stanza against the Rabbitohs, before allowing Wayne Bennett\u2019s side to get back into the contest. He credited Sanders as a big driver in the win, especially his talk on-field: belying his young age with the ability to steer around some of the Raiders\u2019 most capped players into position.<\/p>\n<p>Starling believes an early season scalp such as the Storm would instil the Raiders with the belief once again that they\u2019re a top NRL side \u2013 having failed to fire when it mattered in last year\u2019s finals series. <\/p>\n<p>Melbourne is staring down the barrel of a fifth-consecutive loss, but travel to Canberra boasting a strong record at GIO Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>MORE NRL NEWS<\/p>\n<p>TALKING POINTS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/nrl\/nrl-premiership\/nrl-2026-round-7-talking-points-preview-analysis-latrell-mitchell-future-after-matt-dufty-call-what-is-wrong-with-the-storm-latest-news\/news-story\/d81f334ac453a65859f9971f958e6a89\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">\u2018Surprise\u2019 club switch doesn\u2019t add up; Dogs expose Panthers flaw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>LATE MAIL: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/nrl\/nrl-premiership\/nrl-2026-round-7-late-mail-teams-ins-and-outs-selections-analysis-tigers-jock-madden-news\/news-story\/b00192f09d52c9b8047449b671e06b5f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Dragons cop fresh blow; Benji reveals stunning Luai offer<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Raiders survive after Souths late charge | 04:04<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re still the Melbourne Storm,\u201d Starling said. \u201cSure, results haven\u2019t gone their way but they\u2019re a dangerous side and you\u2019ve just got to look at their spine \u2013 they\u2019re an international spine. They have a really good forward pack as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t just forget about last year, we know what we can do as a team with some new chess pieces. We know we can get better and take some extra steps.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not the start of the season that we wanted, I\u2019d love to be sitting here saying we\u2019d won (every game). We\u2019ve just got to make sure we get better. We left 2025 behind us but we still do draw on the confidence from what we produced last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be really good for us to start knocking off some high-ranked sides, and while Melbourne aren\u2019t high-ranked at the minute, they\u2019re a good quality side and everyone knows that. It\u2019s a big test for us, we\u2019ll have a big crowd at GIO and a nice, dry track.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raiders hooker Tom Starling has praised the selfless act of a teammate who requested his own demotion from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-383888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}