LATE last year I had the privilege of going inside Bimberi Youth Justice Centre with Alan Tongue and Ricky Stuart, as both the former footballers spoke to the young people, aged 10 to 21, in detention.

Alan has developed a program using his experience as a sportsman. On this particular morning he spoke about making the right decisions in life. You can imagine the setting; intimidating in some ways, but the young people listened.

There was an appealing ease in the way Alan engaged the 15 or so young people in a classroom setting before handing over to Ricky.

I hadn’t had a great deal of personal contact with Ricky since he left the Raiders as a player, but when he stood up to speak to these young people who were struggling to get their lives back on track, you could have heard a pin drop.

He spoke genuinely about the decisions he had to make in life and his need to make thoughtful choices.

As for Ricky, he has the potential to be a genuine leader in our community.

He spoke to me afterwards about his desire to ensure his players were not just good footballers but decent young men.

He has worked hard to make sure his players make the most of opportunities as professional sportsmen and for them not to take their positions for granted.

In a nutshell, I have been impressed with what I have seen of Ricky’s work in the community. His Foundation, with its golf day, raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for autism each year. It would seem, as was the case with David Furner, there is more to Ricky Stuart than a football coach.

In fact, the Raiders are well led off the field, too, with Terry Campese, one of the most community-minded footballers in the NRL.

His work with cancer sufferers is legendary. I have often seen Terry before games taking families, who might be doing it tough, through the dressing rooms.

There are plenty of reasons to support the Raiders and it is not necessarily associated with how they perform on the field.

IT might be just me, but I am getting the feeling there is a certain amount of national-team-bid-fatigue in Canberra and I wonder how serious the NBL is about having a team in Canberra. Where will the money come from, is there the support, can it be sustainable?

We have the prospect of having a Big Bash team, an A League side and the NBL in the future all wanting to come to Canberra.

Is the NBL just putting a line in the sand to see what support there is? While the corporate sector is getting squeezed dry, it is hard to see how it can be financially viable and sustainable without Government funding.

The Canberra Cavalry with its grassroots approach presents an alternative way to go: realistically sized venues, small budgets and players living with local families and not in hotels. And what a success the team has been.