Canberra confident with CampeseThe Canberra camp is staying optimistic after losing star five-eighth Terry Campese to a knee injury in their 24-point loss to Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.
A front-runner for the No.6 New South Wales State of Origin jumper, Campese was chaired from the ground by trainers just before half-time in the comprehensive loss.
But despite the pivot's history with long-term injuries, the initial hope from the Raiders staff was that damage to the anterior cruciate ligament had been avoided and the problem was a less serious medial complaint.
"We won't know until the scan, but I don't think it's anything to do with the ACL, so that's good for him," said coach David Furner.
Campese, who played a total of eight minutes last season, was known to be suffering with fluid build-up in his knees ahead of the game, prompting the Raiders to fly Sam Williams in as cover.
But Furner was adamant that his star playmaker had proven his fitness and it had not been a risk sending him out on game night.
"We trained him in the captain's run, as he did the week before, and he was fine," he said.
"I didn't see how it happened. The week before he just had a little bit of clicking. I wouldn't push a player if he couldn't and he was quite happy to do so and he looked pretty good at the start.
"I think the main thing for Campo is to see if he's ok.
"We're pretty confident it's not major or anything like that. He might just need a clean out or whether there's something floating around I'm not sure."
Representative prop David Shillington said the Raiders had failed to reorganise after Campese left the paddock, but threw his support behind 21-year-old stand-by Williams and backed the side to be fully prepared for their next match.
"It was hard to recover when (Campese) went off. We gave them a fair leg up in the first half with offloads and penalties – that was our fault – and then with Campo off it was a bit of a scramble for positions and shape," said Shillington.
"We have a bye so we have two weeks to prepare for our next game with Sammy in there if he's going to play and we should be in good stead."
Source: Sportal
Topic: Raiders Optimistic Campese Injury Not Long Term
