The Canberra Raiders have spent some of their off-season visiting and meeting with some of the biggest names in professional European sport, in a bid to witness first-hand world-best practices and glean insight into improving club operations and programs.
Led by Canberra Raiders Head Coach Ricky Stuart, the Raiders had the opportunity to visit English Premier League giants Chelsea and Arsenal, along with top European rugby clubs Leinster (Ireland), Saracens (England) and the Irish national rugby team.
The main purpose of the trip was to research and gain insight into pathway and development programs, with the Raiders continuing to use these programs as the basis for the club's future. The club was also able to gather useful information on logistics, commercial operations, high performance, club culture and player wellbeing while inside the facilities.
The Raiders have already made a significant investment in their pathway operations, with academies in the regional centres of Canberra, Wagga Wagga, Griffith and the South Coast set up to help bring through the next generation of Raiders stars.
These programs are already showing signs of success, with 75 out of the 79 members of the 2026 Harold Matthews Cup (Under 17s) and SG Ball (Under 19s) squads coming directly from these academy systems.
By visiting the clubs during the recent trip to Ireland and England, the club has been able to obtain key learnings and will be able to implement some of these into its strategy and operations moving forward.
Canberra Raiders Football Manager Matt Ford said the Raiders were appreciative of the opportunity to see some world-class operations, and that the trip had given the club plenty of learnings which they could implement.
“It was an amazing experience to have the opportunity to see some elite sporting organisations up close. The access we had and the time and effort the clubs gave us on our visit were first class, and we were able to collectively take away a lot of worthwhile information which we can bring back to Canberra.”
Ford said one of the most encouraging parts of the trip was that the clubs visited were also interested in seeing what the Raiders were doing well and how they could keep the lines of communication open in the future.
“Everywhere we went, the people we met with were very up-to-date on the Raiders and our results in 2025,” Ford said. “There was a genuine appetite to share ideas and insights both ways, and we’ve definitely set up some avenues to stay connected with the places we visited.
“Earlier this year, we had Andy Farrell (Irish Head Coach) here in Canberra visiting our facility when he was on duty with the British and Irish Lions, so it was wonderful to have the same opportunity to see their facility in Ireland and spend time with their national team.”
The Raiders’ representatives for the trip were Ricky Stuart (Head Coach), Matt Ford (Football Manager), Josh Strahorn (Head of Performance), Brock Shepperd (Assistant Coach), Justin Giteau (Assistant Coach), Andrew Bishop (NRL Wellbeing Manager) and Ben Pollack (Head of Communications and Marketing).
