Canberra fall short in another close game as season begins to slip away
IT was another close loss for the ailing Raiders but coach Ricky Stuart refused to pin the blame of their 25-18 defeat to the Dragons on his battling halves.
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RICKY Stuart says the Raiders won’t win games until they learn out to how to close out matches.
Naturally the focus of Stuart’s comments shifts to halves Blake Austin and Aidan Sezer but the Raiders mentor refused to pin the blame on his scrum base duo despite watching on as his side squandered another lead.
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“We weren’t good enough,” Stuart said. “We weren’t improve as a football team until we start consistently learning how to close out those games that are tight.
“We don’t consistently do it well enough.”
Stuart has been far from settled on his halves combination this year. Sezer was benched to start the season while Austin — who Stuart said had his best defensive game for the club — had a stint in the NSW Cup only earning a reprieve when injury sidelined Sam Williams.
Stuart said it “came down to everybody” when asked if he was being critical of his halves.
“I’m not looking to point the blame,” Stuart said. “It’s everyone’s control to understand how to play and close out games.
“Yes the halves, nine have an important role in that. (But) they have people around them that are smart enough to know to help and combine with those types of decisions.
“We talk about closing out games a lot. We are putting ourselves in so many positions to win games and we haven’t.
“It’s frustrating like it was last week. It’s not my job to run out of patience. I have to keep working hard at it myself to fix it.”
Despite the Raiders losing by seven points they scored three tries apiece with St George Illawarra. The turning point came when Jordan Rapana was sin-binned for unnecessarily holding back opposite Nene McDonald. Gareth Widdop scored in the dying stages of Rapana’s binning. Stuart said he would have to “look at it again” before ruling if the decision was correct.
The Raiders started strongly scoring the opening try through Nick Cotric before the scores were level at the break.
“I was happy with the first 40,” Stuart said. “We went in at 10 all. It’s nice and tough and close.
“(It gets to) 18-all with a player off … we should’ve kicked a field goal and then being a point up with a man off. We have to start playing smart football.”
Game management has cruelled the Raiders all season. They lost their opening three games by two or less points and have now just won four of their opening 11 games to sit in 11th on the ladder after back to back losses.
Skipper Jarrod Corker said the message this week would be a familiar one ahead of their clash against Manly on Friday night.
“We sat down and spoke about it last week being smart,” Croker said. “We will sit down speak about it again this week.”
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Originally published as Canberra fall short in another close game as season begins to slip away
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