The game's getting faster. And so is the Green Machine.
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A group of Canberra Raiders have enlisted one of Australia's leading sprint coaches, Roger Fabri, to get a few extra yards of pace ahead of the 2022 NRL season.
The NRL's six-again rule changes over the past two years has seen the pace of the game rapidly increase, leading to a raft of Raiders reaching out to Fabri to help add turbos to their jets.
Fabri said the five Raiders who reached out to him during the off-season was the most from any NRL club, with former Raider Siliva Havili (South Sydney) also looking to get on board.
And it's not just the outside backs, with Canberra prop Ryan Sutton also feeling the need for more speed.
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Bailey Simonsson, Harley Smith-Shields and Brad Schneider have all been working on their sprinting technique before they return for pre-season training.
Such was the demand, Canberra-based sprint trainer Lincoln Shrubb has joined the Speed Academy.
The Raiders younger players start their pre-season training on Monday, while the senior players don't return until November 19.
Fabri said players were reacting to the NRL's constant tinkering to make rugby league faster.
"I think the mould has well and truly been set now with the speed of the game," he said.
"It's no surprise that the game's got so much faster. You look at the size of the forwards these days, they actually looks like backs, they're built like backs.
"That has probably been the most reached-out team that I've had so far this year.
"I don't know if they've had a pact ... but that team has made the most contact."
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Simonsson's seen the biggest improvement - wiping more than half a second off his 100m time to 11.06s during his time working with one of Fabri's Sydney-based coaches, Jack Darcy.
That's come from shaping the 23-year-old's natural power to improve his technique.
Fabri was a "massive fan" of Nicoll-Klokstad, who he labelled a born natural when it comes to the track.
The Raiders fullback's on the comeback from a serious neck injury at the start of the 2021 season and he's set to add some extra pace when the next campaign begins.
Fabri wasn't sure whether the praise belonged to the athlete or the coach.
"Bailey on a technical scale, he's improved ridiculously," he said.
"He was quite messy, but extremely powerful when he came here. He is extremely efficient now.
"To find 5m is significant and to be honest my national runners would be lucky to find that in two years."
The fact Sutton's also thrown his boots into the sprinting ring shows the game's speeding up everywhere and not just in the backs.
Even the big boppers need to get quicker, with ex-Raider Junior Paulo another turning to sprint training.
"The forwards in the engine room, they're the guys who have really found the difference in the speed of the game," Fabri said.
"They're like, 'Far out, I can't survive being where I was'. The forwards are the guys who are really having to try and keep up."
But there's another Raider Fabri would love to get his hands on after the sprint coach stumped up $2000 for any NRL player who could beat Manly winger Jason Saab over 100 metres.
Xavier Savage was a Queensland junior champion on the track before the Raiders lured him to Canberra to embark on an NRL career.
"I'd say the person that's most likely is Xavier, he ran [10.5s] as a 16-year-old," Fabri said.
"That's certainly nothing to be sneezed at, if he can replicate that ... it'd be nice to see what he could do."