The Canberra Raiders’ Jersey Flegg side will be looking for their first win of the season when they face the Newcastle Knights at GIO Stadium on Friday.
The Raiders will face last years’ premiers but will be going in with some hope after the team beat them in an upset victory in the semi-finals.
Canberra were in prime position to win last week but a field goal after the siren saw a 21-21 draw with the Victorian Thunderbolts.
Head coach Ash Barnes says there are a lot of positives to take away from the game last week after showing some fight during the game even with an injury to halfback Toby Westcott in the first half.
“Obviously losing our dominant half in Toby Westcott wasn’t ideal but I thought the team showed a lot of resilience there to be able to fight back and put ourselves into a position to win the game”
Barnes believes that even though the team was down six to one in the penalty count and losing by 14 at the half proves that the team showed a real positive sign with their competiveness.
Toby Westcott will be sitting out this week with a dislocated knee cap and will be looking at six weeks. Kyle Patterson will be filling in at halfback with high praise from Barnes who was impressed with him when he came into game last week.
“I’ve been really impressed with Kyle, to come back down from training with the NRL squad he’s really taken on a leadership role and has really stepped up in the trails and performed really well and I expect him to do so this weekend”
The game against the Knights will be a curtain raisers for the NRL clash later on, with the Jersey Flegg match kicking off at 3:45pm at GIO Stadium.
