Let’s hope for many celebrations during the 2025 Canberra Raiders season, particularly with a heavy travel schedule at the beginning of the season. Photo: Jaye Grieshaber.
If an academic were to do a PhD on the impact travel has on high-performance sport, they need look no further than the Canberra Raiders in the first 12 rounds of the 2025 NRL season.
It has been calculated that the Raiders will cover 48,000 kilometres in the air and on the ground in the first three months.
The travel schedule includes starting the season in Las Vegas before away games against Manly, the Cowboys, Parramatta in Darwin, the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Auckland, interspersed with five games at Canberra Stadium.
Raiders CEO Don Furner says the club has no qualms about playing the Warriors in Las Vegas to start the season as this was a request made by the Raiders.
It is what follows that has created angst with a heavy travel load, which includes the Round 2 game against Manly at Brookvale, followed by the Cowboys in Townsville, then five days later, they are back in Canberra to play the Sharks before heading to Darwin to face Parramatta, then the Gold Coast to play the Titans.
Furner said the Raiders have sought assistance from the NRL to manage the schedule.
Don Furner, CEO of the Canberra Raiders, is hoping the NRL can help the team out with its heavy travel schedule at the front end of the 2025 season. Photo: Canberra Raiders.
“The NRL has been very responsive in wanting to help us,” says Don Furner, “It is a very tough start to the season, so whatever the NRL can do to help us is greatly appreciated. We are waiting for them to respond to our specific requests.”
These requests include assistance in funding additional accommodation nights in Townsville between the Manly and Cowboys games and a charter flight from Townsville to Canberra with a short turnaround ahead of the Thursday night game against the Sharks.
The Raiders will also need to be prepared for playing in the Queensland and Northern Territory heat early in the season, with games in Townsville, Darwin, the Gold Coast, and Brisbane in the first nine rounds.
How the Raiders handle being on the road to this extent in the first half of the season could well determine how they will finish.
In 2024, Canberra Stadium wasn’t exactly a fortress for the Raiders, with five losses at home while they had six wins on the road.
There is a theory that younger players tend to travel better than their older teammates. This could be because the younger players don’t have families to consider and tend to enjoy life on the road. And with the Raiders boasting a youthful lineup, it could, in actual fact, benefit Canberra.
If they can emerge from the first 12 rounds relatively unscathed, it has the potential to set the side up in a good position in the back half of the year.
There will be many looking to gauge the impact of one of the most arduous travel schedules in Raiders history.
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