BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders 24-6 loss to the Cronulla Sharks told us everything we needed to know about them. They are gutsy. They battled with the Sharks for sixty minutes, refusing to let them have the game. They are also limited. Caused by game-plan or execution, they offered rare moments of innovation and few moments to test their opposition. When you play that style of game any error becomes massive. When you make the biggest error of the game it can all come crashing down.

It wasn’t so much that people expected victory. This side has been listless for the best part of six weeks now. We had hoped minor issues with this club would be fixed by the third bye. Instead they were magnified, albatross carried around the neck of a side, a saddening reminder that this year too would end the way every other since 1994 have. If these issues were going to be so visible in Croker’s 300, or Jack and Jarrod’s last regular season game in Canberra, then it probably was equally unlikely they would be helped by the promise of a home final.

They weren’t. Instead this loss shared so much in common with every loss they’ve had this year. They were, for the most part, courageous and hard-working, refusing to give an inch for so long in a game they were rarely on top of. They were disciplined, at least in how they played the game. They kept the game tight around the ruck, willing to bank on the idea that their middle would eventually wear down their opposition, and with a bit of pluck and luck, they could scratch the rest together.

So it became five hit ups and kick for so much of the game. The Raiders were usually kicking from their own half, propelled out of the back third by a back five that was willing to do the work. Every single one of them cracked 100m on the ground (even Seb Kris, in three-quarters of a game, had 120m). They, for the most part, would be faced with the opposition back-five, similarly happy to play proxy for a middle that is probably politely described as grinders (save for Brandon Hamlin-Uele who had some barnstorming runs back against the grain).

It was a battle of ‘everyone’ but the middles, in the middle. Six of the ten outside backs on the field cracked 150m. Matt Timoko (250m, 84 post contact, 6 tackle breaks) and Jack Wighton (201m 60 post contact, 7 tackle breaks) and Jordan Rapana (199m, 54 post contact, 4 tackle breaks) did the most effective work for the Raiders. Even Hudson Young (16 for 125m, 41 post contact, two tackle-breaks) got through more work than any Canberra middle forward with the ball. But then in defence Zac Woolford made 63 tackles, and Young and Elliott Whitehead did a huge amount of working pushing in to help, on Jess Ramien (200m), on Ronaldo Mulitalo (171m), or on Siosifa Talakai (165m).

Both teams put away their attacking plans and instead battled through the middle, as if they were holding back any fancy stuff because of the possibility they might have to play again the following week. That may have been the case for the Sharks, but this is just how the Milk play. It is so ingrained in their plans that they rarely got more than a pass wide of the ruck. Even Hohepa Puru (11 for 103m) largely tucked his brilliant passing game away, and headed upfield, impressive in his willingness to subsume his ego to the game-plan Coach Stuart had put together (regardless of what we may think of that plan). The Raiders didn’t get tackled in their opposition twenty until the 30th minute of the game.

It was a game waiting for a break. Canberra got on the board almost as a bonus through Jamal Fogarty’s quality kick and Jordan Rapana’s better take. They nearly repeated it a few minutes later. Little did they know it would be the Milk’s best attacking weapon. They had few opportunities apart from that, because the Sharks were unwilling to gift them the field position, but also because on the odd occasion they had it, their conservative game plan was so imbued into every fibre of their operation that they couldn’t throw a shot. It got to the point that Coach Stuart told Jack Wighton to start getting the ball in and around the ruck, which he could have done when he named the team list on Tuesday, but I digress.

On their first proper red-zone set in the 36th minute they ran a set shot off the scrum, a shift left and runaround that Rapana as second man nearly ran in. They followed that up with a set of settlers and crash balls. Upon getting a repeat from a well-weighted Zac Woolford grubber they ran through a few settlers before an early kick hit legs. With the game in the balance in the 56th minute they waited until the last play to actually shift the ball, the ruck wasn’t fast enough, the movement not slick enough, and nothing came of it. They showed one moment of attacking courage, a nice set movement (again with the run-around) that ended with Seb Kris’ foot barely touching the sideline.

This conservatism that so permeated them eventually came back to haunt them when Jack Wighton tore through the line and headed upfield into attack. Any time a player makes a break like that the rule is spread it to the fat side. Call it a rule of thumb. Matt Frawley instead took a hit up. Then Tapine had a hit up. Fogarty was caught one pass from the ruck. A red zone set started with a flailing defensive line never got the ball beyond one pass wide of the ruck. It ended with a kick, Seb Kris spear-tackled Sione Katoa, and that marked a convenient point at which Canberra’ defence went from ‘holding on’ to ‘falling apart’. It also marked the end of Kris’ season (Schiller or Bert Hopoate? We report, you decide).

Which is a shame because against a good attack it had held fast for the most part. The Sharks were more conservative than they would normally be, but not to the extent of the Green Machine. They had more attacking options, and put the Raiders edges in difficult positions. It was pleasing to see Fogarty, Timoko and Whitehead largely keep the Sharks oft-rampant left side under control. The left side had one lapse through the first sixty minutes, in which Matt Frawley was isolated and stuck with a faster player hooning at or around him. Jack Wighton waited too long to come in, and Kris was equally a moment late following him.

If there’s an argument about whether the Kris send-off was a turning point or merely the nitrous button on an already existing trajectory, the Sharks second try, about 10 minutes prior, was a worrying moment. The Sharks backs tore through the middle defenders on an exit set, and then their forwards kept poking at the wound created. Eventually Jordan Rapana was drawn to help, and the next tackle he was trying to race back to be in a position to fix the still existing hole. That moment may have also been driven by Coach Stuart going too long with his middle rotation, a fact potentially confirmed by the fact that replacements came on for the post-try set.

The Raiders could have come back from that, and even from Seb Kris’s departure. Canberra sides have done so before. But this team, right now, needs to go all out to scrape a victory. Things must be perfect to find a win, which is both depressing and makes the fact that they’re playing finals impressive. So a player down was a step too far, and quickly the Sharks began finding easy metres and shifting with far more confidence. Then Jack was standing by himself, the lone player defending an entire third of the field. It was silly and depressing.

And so it all came crashing down. Rapana failed to clean up an attacking grubber for another try to start the mess. Cotric didn’t trust Timoko to cover Hynes and ended up doing a Zoolander style turn trying to get back to Mulitalo (Nic isn’t an ambi-turner). It went quickly from a battle to disaster, a struggling student putting their all into a test and still only getting a C.

This wasn’t because the Raiders didn’t do the work in the game. This was because of the foundation laid through the season. These weaknesses have been there. We’ve all seen them. We’re now just having to wait out the season, looking at them like a mole on our skin and wondering if someone should do something about that (yes, go see your doctor). At some point Canberra could have fixed these weaknesses. Now it’s too late. The sowing wasn’t even fun. The reaping is even worse.

The weirdest thing now is that here we are walking into the finals. 8th place feels like a failure, which is new. It’s testament to the frustrating nature of every win this season. There’s been no catharsis in victory, and only pain in loss. Every team usually gets one day it all feels right. This side instead has frustration, or frustration and losing. You could hope against hope that this turns around but that’s for people who still know what happiness feels like. I just have whisky and the dreams of my youth. One more week. Then we can rest, and maybe build for something better.

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