Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has been plastering dressing room walls with posters of past players

RICKY Stuart has been plastering the walls of Canberra’s dressing rooms with posters of past players to help inspire his current crop of Raiders.

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has been plastering dressing room walls with posters of past players.

WE’VE all heard about Ricky Stuart’s history lessons in Canberra’s rich rugby league history driving the current crop of Raiders.

By understanding what has gone before them in the nation’s capital, Stuart has inspired his players from all over the league globe to create their own chapter in the club’s glittering honour roll.

But to fully understand the powerful impact of Sticky’s message, you need to see Canberra’s dressing room on game day.

Stuart has plastered the walls with posters of Raiders greats and foundation players.

Not just superstars like Big Mal Meninga and Laurie Daley, but lesser known players like Chris O’Sullivan, Dean Lance and now Storm coach Craig Bellamy.

The posters may only be pieces of paper, but they’ve played a powerful role in motivating the 2016 Raiders according to star five-eighth Blake Austin.

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has been plastering dressing room walls with posters of past players.

“A lot of guys aren’t from Canberra, so we don’t necessarily understand the club’s past,” Austin told The Saturday Telegraph.

“But Ricky said we don’t have to be from Canberra for Canberra to love and adore us.

“It’s about understanding what a proud club the Raiders have been because a lot of us are not too old.

“In our change room on game day we have plenty of posters and in our dressing room at training also.

“We also have every Mal Meninga medallist around the club, not only from the ‘80s and ‘90s but some of the more recent guys like your Fensoms, Crokers and Campeses. Ricky has been the biggest driver of that.

“Obviously he is a big part of our history and from talking to him you can tell he has got a lot of respect for the blokes that have come before us in the club.”

That even includes forgotten players like Lui Bon, the Thursday Island-born forward who played just one game for Canberra in the club’s inaugural 1982 season.

Mal Meninga playing for the Raiders in 1994.

The Raiders, who won four matches that season to finish with the wooden spoon, were known as the ‘Faders’ due to their notorious late game collapses.

Bon may not be a big name, but he still had a major influence on Canberra’s culture in those foundation years.

Austin and his fellow Raiders teammates discovered this when they met Bon prior to their clash against South Sydney in Cairns last season.

“It was great to see him,” Austin said. “Lui was one of the founding players and he spoke to us about the good old days. We’ve had a few former players come in and speak to us in the last two seasons.

“More recently we had Quentin Pongia present Adam Clydsdale his debut jumper.

“The way Ricky spoke about him as being one of the toughest blokes he has ever played with.

“Before the match he told us to be the bloke that your mate feels comfortable playing next to.

“I think on the back of things like that we’ve created a real family club.

“We’ve got some blokes in the squad that are great ambassadors for rugby league.”

Blake Austin says Ricky Stuart has built the Raiders into a ‘family club’.

Like Stuart, a bloke Austin says is vastly different to the intensely passionate coach we see on the sidelines every weekend.

“When the cameras aren’t around Ricky is a caring bloke,” he said.

“He is really good at individualising his approach to all the players. The way he treats me might be slightly different to a Joey Leilua or Jordan Rapana.

“It’s a plan that’s working pretty well at the moment.”

Just like the posters of club legends plastered on the walls of the Canberra dressing room.