Why 'immature' Canberra Raiders star Jordan Rapana refuses to take his foot off the NRL pedal

With injuries threatening to end Canberra's season before it really begins, the Raiders could do with a wise old head for this week's clash with the Titans.

Instead, they're getting something better – the return of Jordan Rapana.

Rapana does have the «old» part covered. At 32, he's the oldest at the Raiders and only three active NRL players – Andrew McCullough, Kevin Proctor and Aiden Tolman – got their start in the league before Rapana did back in 2008.

«In age, I'm the oldest at the Raiders, I have a few weeks on Elliott Whitehead, but if you speak to the boys I'm still pretty immature at times. But you have to be like that sometimes,» Rapana said.

Rapana, who will return on the right wing after missing two games due to suspension, never really got the wisdom bit.

Wisdom would say that as an NRL career goes on, a player needs to learn how to minimize head-on collisions in order to prolong their career. Wisdom would say to stop going a thousand miles an hour every single time. Wisdom would say that picking a running battle with David Fifita in the All Stars game is a bad idea.

There are good reasons not to do those things but for Rapana, those reasons don't matter and the reason for that is simple – he made his choice, a long time ago in a place far, far away, during the Mormon mission that kept him away from the NRL for half a decade, that if he ever played footy again he would never, ever hold anything back.

«The biggest part of that came from being out of the game for so long. I was away for five years, and once I got back I knew what it was like to go without the lifestyle we have, the profession of being a footballer,» Rapana said.

«I thought if I ever got a crack in the NRL again that I'm going to make the most of it, I'm