‘Tough teams pull it back’: Ricky Stuart rips into embarrassing Raiders

Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was extremely unhappy with his side’s performance in their Round 16 loss to the Wests Tigers.

Ricky Stuart and Elliot Whitehead post game press conference.

Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was extremely unhappy with his side’s performance in their Round 16 loss to the Wests Tigers.

Stuart’s side were out of the contest from pretty much the opening minutes of the game, with Lachlan Galvin scoring the Tigers’ first try in the third minute.

By halftime, Canberra were down 18-2, though the deficit could have been greater given the Tigers had three tries disallowed in the first 40.

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It was much of the same in the second half, with Benji Marshall’s side scoring the second period’s first four tries, including one right after the interval.

Asked in the post-game press conference about his side’s recent slow starts, Stuart explained Canberra are “not a tough football team at the moment.”

”Tough people pull it back. Tough teams pull it back,” Stuart said of his side’s inability to claw their way back into the contest.

The Raiders were torn apart. Photo by Matt King/Getty Images

Despite a poor opening hour, Canberra caused the Wests Tigers some headaches after Tigers forward Alex Seyfarth was sin binned in the 62nd minute.

Over the next 10 minutes, Canberra scored three tries to keep their slim comeback chances alive. However, an Adam Doueihi intercept try in the 73rd minute put the game to bed.

Stuart believes his side deserves little praise for their performance during that 10 period.

“If we can’t score tries against 12 men we’re in a bad position,” he said.

“I just said the same thing to the boys in there. Don’t get too excited that we scored a couple of tries at the back end when the game was over.

“They took their foot off the pedal, dropped the intensity and had 12 men.”

Originally published as ‘Tough teams pull it back’: Ricky Stuart rips into embarrassing Raiders