NRL 2021: Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart says his team isn’t good enough to play finals

Their season ended with a walloping on Thursday night, and Canberra coach Ricky Stuart had some choice words for his team.

Ricky Stuart said his Raiders side were poor against the Roosters. Picture: Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart says his players don’t deserve to be in the hunt for the finals given the way they’ve played this year after finishing with a woeful 40-16 loss to the Roosters he didn’t see coming.

The Green Machine simply had to win to move into eighth and then hope the Sharks lost to Melbourne, but they couldn’t get the job done against a Roosters side missing the bulk of their squad through injury.

They started well and jumped out to a 12-6 lead, but 16 errors and eight penalties halted any momentum that their middle forwards had earned in the early exchanges.

“I’m not being disrespectful to the Roosters because they’ve had a tough year and have done a really good job to get to where they are,” Stuart said.

“But if we can’t beat that team out there tonight, then we’re only wasting another week being up here. May as well go home to see our families.”

Stuart admitted the loss of halfback George Williams midway through the year took its toll on the team and pointed to a horror stretch as the reason his side failed to live up to expectations.

Canberra won three of its first four games but then lost nine of the next 11 to slide down the ladder as internal dramas were exposed and led to the drop in form.

The Raiders were thrashed by the Sydney Roosters. Picture: Albert Perez/Getty Images

They recovered late in the season, but their flaws were laid bare against the Roosters as their big-name players again failed to fire.

Stuart was particularly disappointed in his side’s attack on Thursday as Canberra missed out on the finals for the first time since 2018.

“It’s an empty feeling. It’s a shocking feeling because I think we’re a better team than where we’ve ended up on the table,” he said.

“We are where we are, and it’s all because of the middle part of the season where we had a really bad slump. We lost all our mojo and form.

“Realistically, we probably don’t even deserve to be fighting for the eight tonight. We were poor tonight. We were really poor.”

Originally published as NRL 2021: Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart says his team isn’t good enough to play finals