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Canberra Raiders chief executive Don Furner says the club still has work to do in order to become salary cap compliant but there is plenty of time to make it happen. Furner admits he remains unsure about what the future holds for Kurt Baptiste, who has been linked to a move, after the club's hooking ranks experienced a raft of changes. Adam Clydsdale's sudden retirement on Friday coincided with the signing of Craig Garvey, as well as the release of Erin Clark which Furner put down to homesickness. But Furner says the changes won't make a massive difference to Canberra's salary cap situation with the two departing players on the lower end of the scale. The Raiders have a host of players at pre-season training effectively on train-and-trial deals as the club looks to nail down its 30-man NRL squad. The Green Machine won't make any hasty changes to alleviate salary cap pressures, with Furner keen to see how things pan out before the season begins in March. "All things change quickly in our sport," Furner said "We went from four hookers to two pretty quickly with one retiring and one homesick and going back home. That's the way it goes, you can come up and next thing you've got an injury and we need to fill that spot. "There'll be plenty of time to fill a few spots. [Clydsdale and Clark] were on the lower end of the cap so they don't actually affect the cap that much." Furner admits he was "definitely" shocked by Clydsdale's sudden retirement and had hoped the 24-year-old would at least see out his one-year deal in Canberra. Furner understands family business interests will lure Clydsdale back home to Newcastle, hanging up the boots following a tumultuous year. Clydsdale left Canberra to sign with Cronulla at the back end of the 2017 season, but rejoined the Raiders in revolving door fashion earlier this month. "He's a really good fella, but he felt that he is much better off at that time of his life working and he got a good opportunity," Furner said. "We were hoping he'd finish the year, at least this year with us but he got to that point where he just got a good opportunity. It's a pity, he's still certainly an NRL player." Clark joined the Raiders this year from the New Zealand Warriors and Furner didn't want to delve into the details of his sudden release. Instead he has turned his attention to filling the void with Clark's departure opening the door for a number of prospective players to take their opportunity. "We've still got a few spots we need to fill, we filled one the other day with Craig Garvey but we'll just keep our eye out between now and March and see what happens," Furner said. "There are some from our association with Mounties, so we're seeing how they go. We've got a couple of positions still in the top 30 so we'll keep looking and see what comes up."

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