Canberra Raiders local junior and 2016 Intrust Super Premiership NSW Player of the Year Sam Williams will return to the Raiders in 2018 after signing a new two-year deal with the club.
Williams was an instrumental part of Wakefield Trinity’s rise into the Super 8 stages of the English Super League in 2017 after departing the Raiders at the end of 2015.
It will be the third time Williams has been part of the Raiders NRL squad, after making his debut with the club in 2011, he was a member of the squad until departing at the end of 2013, before returning to the club for the 2015 and 2016 seasons. In 2016, he was instrumental in steering the Raiders' feeder club Mounties to the Intrust Super Premiership NSW Grand Final.
Williams said he’s looking forward to returning to Canberra and the Raiders and said he’s ready for the challenge of trying to break back into the Raiders NRL team.
“This has always been home for me, it’s great to be back with a lot of mates that I have made and we have great coaching staff as well,” Williams said. “There haven’t been a lot of changes since I left last time, it will be easy for me to slide back into the club, I know the culture and how the place works, it was exciting to get the call back to come here.”
“I’m just lucky to be back here and it’s going to be a great challenge, I can’t wait.”
Raiders NRL recruitment and High Performance Manager Peter Mulholland said the club was thrilled to have Williams return to the club, with his experience and work ethic providing the squad with an NRL quality half.
“Sam has proven in the past he is an NRL standard halfback and we are looking forward to him rejoining the squad for the next two seasons,” Mulholland said. “We know what a hard worker Sam is and we’re expecting him to rejoin the squad and provide us with competition in the halves which is a good thing for any club to have.”
