Ricky Stuart said his inexperienced Raiders team learned valuable lessons after they were “not up to a standard” in their heavy 62-24 loss to the Dolphins to close out the season.
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Canberra rested 11 key players on Sunday with the minor premiership wrapped up and it showed on the scoreboard, with Stuart’s men struggling to contain a dynamic Dolphins side that was stacked with attacking threats all over the park.
Speaking in his post-game press conference, Stuart said Sunday’s game gave him an “opportunity” to look at a handful of younger players who had previously seen limited playing time in the NRL.
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“It was a good position for me to actually give them the opportunity to play because you get a read on how they handle certain scenarios and situations,” Stuart said.
“Today you can see by the amount of errors that we made, we were on the backfoot for 70-odd minutes of the game and you can’t do that at this level.
“… Those types of scenarios that they face there and certain parts of that game tonight were very much a great learning curve for them in regards to what happens in NRL if you’re not up to a standard.”
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The Raiders completed just 67 per cent of their 33 sets, making 11 errors and while the Dolphins weren’t a whole lot better at times with their handling they were far better at creating scoring opportunities with 13 linebreaks to Canberra’s four.
Of course, that was to be expected with such a clear discrepancy between the two teams and stand-in skipper Corey Horsburgh said that while the scoreline didn’t reflect it he had “fun”.
“I know the young fellas did too. I was proud,” he said.
Attention now turns to next week’s qualifying final against Brisbane, with Stuart admitting the Raiders have a “massive job” against a “red-hot” side.
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“They’re a very, very good football team,” he said.
But when one journalist asked Stuart if the Broncos are a better team than the one they defeated 32-22 in Round 2 earlier in the year, the Raiders coach had a classic response.
“I don’t know mate. I don’t watch them as much as you do,” he said.
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