BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders 30-28 loss to the Newcastle Knights was harrowing and horrible. Gutting losses in finals games are like that. They faced their biggest enemies: themselves, and pace on the edges, and lost. But their battle was noble, their end valiant. This team lost because the limitations we’ve known about all year were never corrected. That they nearly overcame them was stirring.

That the Raiders lost was expected. They were coming up against probably the most red-hot team in the competition. They were a shell of the team they were meant to be, or perhaps were at times this season, depending on the hue of your iris. The Milk were so short they were pulling players out of Cup footy like tickets at a meat raffle, hoping that this would be the one that resulted in celebration and the end of all problems (winning a meat raffle will do that, rookie footballers less so). Not only that, they added to their absentee list throughout the game, forced a winger to struggle through on vibes and seemingly without a functional quadricep, and those that were standing at the end of the game were more cramp than man.

And even then those crazy bastards nearly did it. They played good football, even occasionally exciting, often goddamn stirring stuff. They stood tall against a good opponent. They played to their strengths and didn’t outwardly panic amongst the cacophony of noise in Newcastle. They punched their opponent in the mouth, and when they took two to the jaw themselves they stumbled, righted, and swung right back. It was awful. It was glorious. It was the 2023 Canberra Raiders.

For somewhere near 60 minutes of a 90 minute game they were not just in the show but dominant. Anyone that has watched this team knows that good times come when they can win the middle, and they did this for a good chunk of the game. Through the first half they outgained their opponents by 400 odd metres, had 120 more post contact. They were tackled 48 times in the opposition half (to just 18 for the Knights), reflecting a game played to Canberra’s advantage because of the work of their engine room. Even after the Knights turned the tables in the first twenty minutes of the second half the Raiders still ended the game massively outgaining their opponents.

And what’s exciting is that it wasn’t the usual suspects. Sure Joe Tapine was stunning, ripping through 178m (66 post contact), and a critical offload in setting up the final try. Jordan Rapana was in literally everything but a good chunk of his 269m and 10(!) tackle breaks came through his willingness to be the hammer on Canberra sets, coming in a turn a good run by someone else into a rolling maul. More exciting was that the ‘next generation’, many in their first final, stepped up and not just did their job, but for good chunks thrived.

Trey Mooney had great carries and good offloads, and his barge over try after catching a short drop out, stepping off his right and heading north is proof of the game-breaking nature of his game. Pasami Saulo (11 for 102, 33 post contact), often noticed more for his willingness to do the unnoticed, was taking critical carries (such as a brutal run and quick ruck to set up what could have been the game-winning field goal as time wound down in regulation). Most excitingly though Ata Mariota (19 hit ups for 193m, 74 post contact, 3 tackle breaks, a try that wasn’t given, 33 tackles and a solitary miss) was brilliant. When Joe Tapine’s night was ended by a Head Injury Assessment, Mariota became the siege tower that laid the pathway for others to breach.

And it wasn’t just in attack. The middle controlled the game on both sides of the ball. Outside of their twenty minutes of dominance the Knights rarely cracked fifty metres on a set, desperately overwhelmed by the young Raiders middle, even without Tapine on the field, even forced into extra minutes by Hohepa Puru’s unfortunate head-injury on the fourth minute. Through the first forty the Knights had a single forward with more than fifty metres. They only had two over 100 for the game, and they got an extra ten minutes to get there.

This is, of course, the pre-condition of any 2023 Canberra victory. They must win the middle, because they are hopeless without it. In this circumstance it allowed them more space to play a bit of footy. They were hardly perfect – 45 tackles in the red zone is a metric shit-ton and didn’t result in as many points as it could have. But for once they were able to attack the defence at multiple places on the field, comfortably shifting to both edges and testing them in different and varied ways.

Jamal Fogarty was of course central to all of this, and is increasingly playing a dominant part in what Canberra do well, playing first receiver on first side of the ruck. This role makes rumours of Ethan Strange playing six next year more understandable. His kicking game, save for a poor bomb and a awfully timed kicking error that set up the Knights field position to win the game, was excellent. Jordan Rapana was the other part that added width to the attack. He poked and probed as second receiver on shift plays, first receiver on weak-sides, and second-man on more structured sweeping movements. It’s exhilarating how well he’s played in this role, proof that with a bit of work the Green Machine could actually have a functional attack.

This created more opportunities but only resulted in one direct try, a perfectly worked movement just before halftime that got Jack Wighton the ball in space heading at the line, allowing him to draw the winger in, and push a pass out, for Schiller to score. Apart from that though Canberra were unable to formalise any of the moral victories that came with an ability to play more expansively. It spoke to the the hand this team is playing with. Everything was a moment off being right, reflecting the airplane being built in the air, the fact that the staff had only met recently, but also a philosophy that had kept the ball from these spaces, with this level of intricacy, for too much of this season. They created plenty of opportunities, but finished so few.

Instead, as often is the case, their tries were more opportunistic than otherwise. Hudson Young set up James Schiller when Wighton forced Dane Gagai into an error. Mooney scored the aforementioned try from the short drop-out. Matt Frawley scored a try after the defence spent the best part of the game showing him zero respect, sliding off him before he even passed the ball and leaving a second-rower to cover across, something no other half in the competition would ever be offered consistently. And Tom Starling’s equaliser was a perfect Canberra try, Joe Tapine creating something from nothing, Elliott Whitehead turning something into a good thing, and Tommy finished the job.

Not only did their dominant field position allow them more freedom and opportunity to score points, it also hid their most glaring weakness: an edge defence that was at its limit trying to keep the Knights under control. If Canberra could stop their opposition from rolling they could do this, by utilising their second-rowers to jam in hard on anything developing, and asking their centres to ‘jump the route’ so to speak, sitting in the pocket of Kalyn Ponga or the opposition centres.

But once their middle wasn’t in control it exposed just how flimsy this premise was. The left side was torched – four tries in the fifteen minutes the Canberra pack wasn’t dominant. If Hudson Young or Jack Wighton was forced in early to stop a raid, the next movement was right there, safe in the knowledge that Matt Frawley was isolated and afraid, exposed repeatedly. It didn’t help that James Schiller was running around with half a leg, or that Wighton, theoretically the best defender in the back five, was cooked so brazenly by Kalyn Ponga on one try that he was left standing there like Wile E Coyote’s latest bomb didn’t quite work (hmm topical). That twenty minute period where the Milk didn’t have control was all it took for it all to fall apart. And it did.

That showed the dire nature of that defensive issue. The Raiders did not have an answer that didn’t start with ‘don’t let them get a sniff’. It’s not a sustainable approach. There are going to be times where you are not dominant. Even good teams are forced to play from behind the game occasionally. Canberra can do this (shit they did it tonight) but the risk of damage that any low period would bring isn’t winning football. It bit them before this game, it bit them again. I’m sure in a quiet moment Sticky will look at that and wonder how they never got it fixed, and probably point to personnel or individual error, but there’s a more profound problem there that needs addressing.

And so it all collapsed with the force and chaos of a child seeking revenge on a sandcastle. Only it didn’t. When it was all meant to fall down Canberra stiffened. Faced with a quiet death and raging against the dying of the light they chose rage. Maybe it was the fact once the game got away from them there was nothing left to lose, and it freed them to stare death in the face and smile. Maybe it was they found that special nugget of courage they have carried with themselves all season. That pig-headedness gifted to them by their obstinate coach that recognised their problems, their limitations, and chose to simply ignore them.

The most important words a man can say are ‘I will do better’, and the Raiders did exactly that. It wasn’t enough. They had two shots at redemption and one was blocked, and Matt Frawley’s never got off the ground. And then one poor kick was all it took for the Knights to finally get some field position, a fortuitous penalty (because it wasn’t given at the end of the first period, but was as the end of the second) and that was game over. Season over.

There’s change coming to this squad and change needed. This season has been awful to watch, simply because this team never found its groove, never fixed their issues, and only succeeded through sheer stubbornness. That’s not sustainable. They had to hit the top-end of expectations to squeeze out victories. They had to battle like the 300 to nearly survive this game. They have talent both in experienced positions and coming through. More is needed, and they can give it.

But if more is needed it won’t be to resolve. To heart. To courage. This team has been to hell and back for the past eight weeks trying to find what made them functional and what has made them great. I don’t think they ever found it. But that makes what they nearly achieved here all the more remarkable. They were a broken team but still raged into battle despite imminent death. They could have cowered. They could have retreated. They instead chose the pain of giving a shit. It’s a small solace right now but a worthy one.

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