No Amount of Rain will Dampen Campese’s SpiritsRain, hail or shine – Canberra Raiders Captain Terry Campese will lead the side out against the Melbourne Storm on Saturday evening.
“I’m 100% fit,” the mercurial five-eighth enthused.
“I’ve done a lot of work on the all the injuries I sustained last year over the off-season so I’m just excited to get back out there and the knee is close to perfect now. I’ve trained in every session apart from two sessions last week.”
“I’m more than ready for the game. It’s been a long year off and I’m excited for it. I can’t wait to lead the boys out.”
There has been torrential downpour in the Nation’s Capital all week and rain is expected for the match on Saturday. The wet weather may end up playing into Canberra’s hands with Campese’s kicking game and the Raiders monstrous forward pack being proven trump cards.
“Hopefully the rain keeps up and slows them down a bit. It’ll just be one of those days where whoever’s got the ball and controls most of the possession will win the game. We’ll aim to play field position, kick early and play down their end of the field.
“We’ve done a lot of work over the off season on our ball control. In both our trials I think we completed close to over 80% and that will be our goal again for this week. We’ll go in there with the mindset of controlling the ball and defending our asses off.”
Coach David Furner also highlighted the importance of the side’s kicking game particularly with the return of star fullback Billy Slater, who missed the trial earlier in the year which the Raiders won 27-18.
“Positionally, Billy Slater is a very good fullback. From what I’ve seen in the trials he’s recovered from his injury and is back to his best so we need to make sure that not only do we need to find space with our kicking game but we’ll also need to have a very good kick chase.”
“I think our big forward pack will also be an advantage to us in the wet and will allow us to roll forward. Melbourne is a side that can suffocate that go forward though with their tackling technique so we’ll have to fight for everything.”
Canberra will be at full strength for the clash and will also be buoyed by the resigning of their dashing fullback Josh Dugan for a further two years.
“Josh Dugan’s resigning has definitely provided the team with a boost and it’s a great thing that it’s happened before round one,” Campese said.
“Just knowing that a player of his caliber wants to stay at the club and knows that we can do great things here gives everyone an added bit of confidence.”
“It’s the first time in a long time that we’ve gone into the first game of the year with everyone on board. It’s going to be exciting and hopefully the rain does hold off a little bit so that we can throw the ball around a bit and make it an exciting spectacle for the fans but not too much so it still slows them down a bit,” said Campese with a cheeky grin.
The match against the Melbourne Storm kicks off this Saturday at 5:30pm at Canberra Stadium.
Source: Canberra Raiders
Topic: Rain, Hail or Shine - Campese Will Lead Raiders Against The Storm
