Canberra Raiders boss Don Furner says getting out of the health hazard that is Canberra's toxic air was the right call.
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The Raiders will leave for the Sunshine Coast on Thursday for a 10-day training camp as they ramp up preparations for their NRL opening round clash against the Gold Coast Titans at Canberra Stadium on March 13.
Canberra's entire squad of 30 will fly north to escape the smoke from the NSW bushfires that has made the ACT's air dangerous to train in.
It will cost the Green Machine about $80,000, a figure the NRL has already said would likely be exempt from the club's cap on football department spending.
The Raiders will use the facilities of the local rugby league team, the Sunshine Coast Falcons, who Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has a good relationship with.
It's not the first time they've been based there, having played a pre-season trial against the Canterbury Bulldogs at the Sunshine Coast Stadium in 2018.
Super Rugby team ACT Brumbies have already left for Newcastle for a similar-length camp and the Raiders will follow suit.
Canberra's air has become extremely hazardous due to the smoke that's blown up from the NSW south coast, which has been devastated by bushfires.
The Raiders trained inside on Monday, spending the morning in the gym at their Bruce headquarters and the afternoon on treadmills at Club Lime.
They'll potentially be forced to continue training indoors until their departure.
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Furner said it had been a minor disruption to their return to pre-season training, but nothing compared to what the people affected by the fires had to endure.
They followed the advice of their new club doctor, Greg MacLeod, who has previously worked with the New Zealand Kiwis, the Queensland Reds and the Otago Highlanders.
"They did some running inside at Club Lime [Monday]," Furner said.
"They'll do some more inside stuff [Tuesday] and probably break Wednesday and then they'll fly Thursday. Minor disruptions.
"Other clubs have had floods at the start of the year and couldn't run, so definitely getting out of this potential health hazard was the right thing to do.
"There are a lot worse people affected than us."
At the time of writing the air quality index for Canberra was 359 at Belconnen - more than twice the limit that's considered hazardous for athletes to train in.
Anything above 150 is considered unsafe, with predictions for it to remain above that level until at least the end of Friday.
Furner said he would apply to have the camp excluded from the football department cap.
"Once we get all the costs and once we've done the camp [I'll put in an application]," Furner said.
"It gets audited anyway so they see all those costs and then we would just put a request in."