Stuart slams sub-par Raiders

Canberra coach Ricky Stuart has slammed his side's performance after the Dragons overran them to notch up a 22-20 victory on Saturday.

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart

Coach Ricky Stuart has slammed the Raiders' performance during their 22-20 loss to the Dragons. (AAP)

Canberra coach Ricky Stuart has slammed his side for not playing up to "first grade standard" during their 22-20 loss to the Dragons on Saturday.

Up 18-0 after just 20 minutes at GIO Stadium, the Green Machine's wheels quickly came tumbling off after a fourth try was disallowed by the video referee for a double movement.

The Dragons then put on four straight tries, two of which Stuart labelled "soft", to overrun the Raiders in the 75th minute.

"It's not first grade standard," Stuart said.

"We lost that game ourselves. Poor pieces of play, some individual performances tonight that weren't first grade standard.

Adding injury to insult is a knee concern for star recruit winger Sisa Waqa, who limped off during the second half.

Stuart, who was unsure if Waqa had done any serious damage, declined to go into details of where his side went wrong post match.

"I don't need to be discussing that publicly," he said.

"Having you blokes run off and then start criticising certain areas of the game.

"We'll work on it ourselves in the inner sanctum.

"We've got a very upset group of players in there, who all understand and know where we went wrong."

In what's proving to be the NRL's latest barbecue stopper, Blake Austin was controversially denied a second four-pointer due to a double movement, despite it looking like momentum had taken him over the line.

Stuart also declined to comment on the pivotal video referee decision post-match.

"No, it's a waste of time," he said.

"What did you make of it?

"It doesn't matter now, does it? Did you think it was a try? You saw the replay."

For what it's worth, Austin believes momentum took him over the line.

"I thought I was rolling at the time with momentum," he said.

"Running at pace you're always going to have that momentum. What ruined me was the (on-field) referee's ruling of 'no try'."


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Source: AAP


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