'Mr Ricky is my friend': why the Raiders are melting hearts

Raiders fan Maria Moschetti sent an email to Locker Room this week to detail her interaction with Stuart. Maria's nine-year-old daughter is autistic, and she sent an email to the Raiders to thank Stuart for raising awareness for autism.

To Moschetti's surprise, her phone rang soon after. It was Stuart with an offer for a meet and greet at the Raiders' epic win against Manly.

"First footy game in eight years and Lily is not great with crowds or loud noises but to my amazement she lasted the whole game and we even got her cheering," Moschetti said.

"This was a massive step for Lily, then once the game was done Lily got to meet some of the boys."

Injured half Jamal Fogarty gave Lily a kicking tee and Xavier Savage (or Savage Love as Lily calls him) gave her his boots. Magic Moustache (aka Tom Starling) was there, too, and then Lily sang a song to Savage.

"She held those shoes all the way home and kept saying, 'Mummy I am so lucky Savage Love gave me his boots' and, 'Mummy Mr Ricky is my friend he knows me.

"When we got Lily's diagnosis I kept thinking of everything she would miss out on and it broke my heart.

"Lily's father Russel is a massive Canberra Raiders fan, has been since he was little and that saying: 'we bleed green', it's true [and] it trickled down to Lily.

"Mr Stuart cops a lot flak as a coach but people don't stop to see the other side. He is so kind and goes out of his way for the Canberra fans including my daughter.

"The boys gave my daughter just a moment of kindness that's going to live with her forever. I don't know if you can, or want to, but we would love it if Ricky got some recognition." Consider it done. Well done to the Raiders and hopefully we hear Lily break into song more often.

Speaking of coaches, we think we've found the problem for the ACT Brumbies' discipline issues last week. Stephen Larkham.

Well, maybe not the problem. But it's a funny story anyway.

A few hours before arriving at Canberra Stadium to prep his troops for the win against the Fijian Drua, the Wallabies' World Cup winner and Super Rugby champion pulled the boots back on for an old boys day at Wests.

Imagine the surprise when you're getting ready for a fourth-grade game on a Saturday morning and after doing the warm up, you look across and see one of the greatest players in Australian history standing opposite you.

Larkham teamed up with Wests legend Craig Robberds, but the best part of all this? Larkham got yellow carded for repeated infringements. Later that night, the Brumbies conceded 16 - yes 16 - penalties in their tight win against the Drua.

We hear Larkham was cracking the whip at training this week to get the team to make better decisions.

"It was a bit of fun ... a bit of fourth grade, it was a good level. It was the right level for me," Larkham said.

"The yellow card was at the end of the game, there was nothing in it. It was repeated infringements on the line. I think the most important thing is we connected really well as a team and the old boys had a good day. I certainly enjoyed my time out there."

Larkham's old teammate Justin Harrison grilled him after the Brumbies win, and had some footage to share. Will we see Larkham back on the field again this season?

"Not during the Super Rugby season," Larkham grinned. "We'll see, post-season we'll have a look at it. I didn't train going into that game, so after five minutes I was pretty much gone. If I do it again, it'll be on the back of some training."

And speaking of Larkham and Stuart, both have advanced to the quarter-finals of our search for Canberra's greatest footballer.

You may have seen us launch the series earlier this week. If you missed it, we picked 16 players from the 1994 Canberra Raiders and the 2004 Brumbies - arguably the two greatest teams in Canberra's rugby league and rugby union history - and put them head to head.

Larkham knocked off Jeremy Paul in his first-round battle, while Stuart snuck through in a tight race against Bradley Clyde.

The quarter-finals are now locked in. After tallying the votes from readers, we've got Larkham v George Smith, George Gregan v Joe Roff, Stuart v Brett Mullins and Laurie Daley v Mal Meninga.

The quarter-final voting will run over the weekend, with the semis early next week and then the winner announced next Friday.

Don't forget to vote if you want to have your say.