John Barilaro calls for Canberra Raiders to go home

Barilaro's comments came as ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr backed the Raiders playing at Canberra Stadium in July - but it might be to only small crowds in the beginning.

The Canberra Times believes the NRL are open to shifting games to the ACT as soon as possible, with chief executive Andrew Abdo pledging to get the Raiders back playing at their real home as quickly as possible.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison opened the door for crowds of up to 6250 at Canberra Stadium.

He said stadiums with a capacity less than 40,000 could be a quarter full in July.

Barilaro has been a powerful backer in the NRL's return after the coronavirus shutdown.

He felt it was an important part of Australian society to have the rugby league - and other sports as well - back playing as quickly and as safely as possible.

With the NRL now back, the NSW Nationals leader and member for Monaro also wants the Raiders back playing at home too.

Currently, the Raiders are forced to travel up and down the Hume Highway to play their home games at Campbelltown Stadium.

That was partly because the ACT government shut Canberra Stadium as a non-essential business until July 7.

MORE RAIDERS NEWS

The Raiders had been focusing on playing their round 11 clash with South Sydney there on July 25.

But with the ACT Brumbies set to play their Super Rugby AU restart against the Melbourne Rebels there on July 4, that's opened the door for the Raiders to come back earlier too.

They have a home game against St George Illawarra the night before the Brumbies-Rebels game and also against the Melbourne Storm on July 11.

Barilaro would like to see both of those shifted from Campbelltown to Canberra.

"They're disadvantaged more than most because there's not a home game here," he said.

"Home games are important, everyone talks about the local crowd and sometimes you can make them a fortress.

"It is important and I just think the NRL has to recognise that and ... in my mind it'd be good to see them at home again."

He also felt it would be safe to have small crowds at those games with social-distancing measures in place.

Canberra Stadium has a capacity of about 25,000, which under Morrison's announcement on Friday would allow 6250 fans through the gates.

"If you apply the one person per four square metres, but you accept some families can sit next to each other, you're probably going to get 30 per cent of the capacity under those rules," Barilaro said.

"But Canberra Stadium I'd be confident you could get anywhere between 5000 and 10,000 people there.

"Even if it's a slow start of 5000, but start getting people back into the game. I reckon people are eager and those tickets will be hot."

But Barr was taking a more cautious approach.

While he was open to Canberra Stadium coming back online early, he would only do so with safe numbers.

The Canberra Times revealed there's been discussions on using the eastern stand for crowds, with the western side kept solely for the players.

Barr warned the first few games back there might only have crowds in the hundreds rather than thousands.

"If they can have that sensible conversation with the NRL ... I'd like to see them on free-to-air tele more as well, but yes, we would support that [returning to Canberra Stadium]," he said.

"We need to have that conversation with them about how to do this safely. I don't want to raise expectations today.

"But I do want to signal we are open to that conversation and will work through it. It might be, for the first game, [that] it's not thousands of people."

NRL acting chief executive Andrew Abdo was thankful for the sacrifices the Raiders have made.

He hinted they were working with the medical authorities and Barr's government to bring games back to Canberra Stadium earlier than expected.

"We're very thankful to the Canberra Raiders for the sacrifices they made to ensure the [NRL] premiership resumed on May 28," Abdo told The Canberra Times.

"The competition resumed with a consolidated venue strategy with customised infrastructure to ensure venues complied with our strict biosecurity protocols and health orders.

"When we released the draw we deliberately only allocated venues for rounds three to nine to allow a phased approach back to regular venues when restrictions ease.

"The [ARL] Commission will consider a revised approach once we have consulted our medical experts and of course the ACT government.

"We all want to see the Raiders back playing in Canberra as soon as protocols allow and we are working to make that a reality.

"We also want to see fans back in the stands at GIO Stadium. Raiders fans and the Viking clap have been one of the great stories of our game."

NRL ROUND FIVE

Saturday: Canberra Raiders v Wests Tigers at Campbelltown Stadium, 7.35pm. Live on Fox League.

Raiders team: 1. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad 2. Bailey Simonsson 3. Jarrod Croker (C) 4. Curtis Scott 5. Nick Cotric 6. Jack Wighton 7. George Williams 8. Josh Papalii 9. Josh Hodgson (C) 10. Dunamis Lui 11. Joe Tapine 12. Elliott Whitehead 13. Corey Horsburgh 14. Siliva Havili 15. Emre Guler 16. Sia Soliola 17. Jordan Rapana 18. Tom Starling 19. Matt Frawley 20. Ryan Sutton 21. Michael Oldfield.

Wests Tigers team: 1. Adam Doueihi 2. David Nofoaluma 3. Joey Leilua 4. Moses Mbye 5. Tommy Talau 6. Josh Reynolds 7. Luke Brooks 8. Josh Aloiai 9. Harry Grant 10. Zane Musgrove 11. Luciano Leilua 12. Chris Lawrence 13. Alex Twal 14. Thomas Mikaele 15. Russell Packer 16. Michael Chee-Kam 17. Alex Seyfarth 18. Benji Marshall 19. Luke Garner 20. Billy Walters 21. Corey Thompson.