Homecoming for duo as Rolling Raiders host first competition game in Wagga

A Raiders game will be played in the city for the first time as they play host to the Tigers at PCYC Wagga at 2.15pm as part of the NSW Wheelchair Rugby League NSW Cup competition.

Popple and Carl are two of the rising stars of the sport and they have led from the front in the Raiders inaugural season.

Having travelled a fair bit over the past four years to Canberra and Sydney on a regular basis, Popple was excited to be a playing a game in his hometown.

"Yeah absolutely, we're looking forward to it," Popple said.

"It'll be good to bring a game home and see how we go there.

"The whole set up with the Canberra team, it's basically ourselves from Wagga and then boys from Canberra and surrounding regions.

"To be able to bring a game back to Wagga and play the sport that we love at home, it's just a great achievement."

Popple and Carl have seen firsthand the growth of the sport over the past couple of years having first started in a local Canberra competition in 2021.

The game between the Raiders and Tigers isn't the only thing planned for Saturday as Popple revealed they will also be playing host to a come and try day following their clash.

"It's grown massively in the four years we've been involved," he said.

"In that time they've grown the comp from one level competition to now having two tiers and they are expanding on that as well.

"The sport in Sydney is growing and they are also trying to expand it into regional areas.

"We play at 2.15pm on Saturday and after the game around four o'clock we'll have a come and try session that will be led by Brad Grove who is the Australian and NSW captain.

"He'll be running the come and try session alongside Zac and myself, so anyone who's keen come and jump in a chair.

"There'll be heaps of chairs and we'll try and get heaps of people involved."

Having grown from being a spectator to now being a Country and NSW State of Origin player, Popple was hopeful that more local people would get involved in the sport.

"It'd be awesome to get people involved whether they've got a disability or not it doesn't matter," he said.

"The more people that come and jump in a chair and get to experience the game the better.

"We started off watching the game one time and just went that was awesome how do we get involved.

"Then we started playing and two years later we'd represented NSW and are just growing on that.

"We are trying to get other people involved and hopefully they'll fall in love with the sport like we did."

Popple was announced as the captain of the inaugural Raiders side and he agreed it was a special honour to receive.

"Yeah definitely," he said.

"I try and take it in my stride and grow the team with it.

"We've got a lot of very inexperienced players in the team, so I'm trying to set a good example and be a leader in the team is what we're striving to do.

"Zac is my co-captain in the team, so him and I are trying to lead by example and take the players in the right direction."

It's been a developing year for the Raiders in the competition this season and Carl believes as a team they are slowly finding their feet at the advanced level.

"It's definitely been a step up from what we were used to," Carl said.

"But we are slowly building into it and developing the players that we have to that level of game which has been good and we've been playing a lot better recently."

The pairing are also fresh off an appearance in the City v Country game, where City narrowly prevailed in a close contest.

Although on the wrong end of the result, Carl felt it was a beneficial experience and it had assisted in their own development.

"It was good," he said.

"It was a very high level game and very quick, it was another bit of experience to improve our own games as well as help our development."