Campese ready for massive Raiders yearTERRY Campese has declared himself ready to lead Canberra to a 2012 grand final after playing less than 10 minutes for the entirety of last season.
The influential 27-year-old play maker made his return in Round 13 from a devastating knee injury which occurred at the end of 2010.
But the comeback was agonizingly shortlived - in the same game he suffered a tear in his groin which sidelined him for the rest of the 2011 season.
Hopeful the worst is behind him, Campese is the front runner to take over the Canberra captaincy following Alan Tongue’s retirement this year.
Playing in the halves Campese insists his role in the team won’t change regardless of who is named skipper, with his main focus leading his side to grand final day.
“In the halves you have to take on a leadership role so it doesn’t change too much if you have (the captaincy),” Campese told sportsnewsfirst.com.au.
“You have to just do your job... (My hopes) are always the same mate and that’s to win the comp.
“I wouldn’t be playing at the Raiders if I didn’t think we could go all the way.
"I believe in every person here. I believe that we can do it.”
The loss of Tongue has already set in at training with Campese prepared to take some of his load but while he has played with the Raiders since debuting in 2004, Campese is ready to return to the field in the trials games with or without the captaincy.
“I’m not sure who is accepting the captaincy or if we will have a few,” he said.
“Every person would love to be in the position of captaining their club but it’s out of my control so I’ll just have to knuckle down, work hard and see what comes.”
Looking to 2012, Sam Williams and Josh McCrone will battle it out for the chance to partner Campese in the halves.
In Campese’s absence through injury it allowed Canberra to unearth Williams who impressed in his first year of NRL.
“At the start of last year if you asked Sam how many games he would play he would have tossed up one or two,” he said.
“For him to get so much NRL exposure was a good thing and he came a long way and handled himself very well. He’s only a young kid but has a big future.”
Campese resumed fulltime training on Thursday but took time out on Wednesday to travel to Deakin in Canberra with teammate Joel Thompson to officially launch their 100-4-100 membership campaign.
Source: Sports News First
Topic: TERRY Campese is ready to lead Canberra to a 2012 grand final
