BY DAN

If anything the Canberra Raiders 18-10 loss to the New Zealand Warriors was further proof they are much better than most thought.

This was a humdinger, knock-’em-down, drag-’em-out pub brawl of a battle. Two elite forward packs hitting each other with right crosses, left hooks, beer bottles and chairs for 80 minutes. In the end it came down to which attacking unit could ask the most questions, and which edge could solve the most problems. That Canberra came out on the wrong side of that is testament that there’s still improvement to be made. That they stood tall for the majority of the game is proof that it’s not as much as one would have thought a month ago.

That’s impressive. The Warriors are a very good football team, playing at home in front of a crowd that was baying for blood with such fever one would have thought a vampire was loose in a Taylor Swift concert. They were desperate, needing a victory against a side that merely wanted one. That’s an important distinction that Canberra showed the heart and fitness to ignore. With the ball and carpet soaked in dew the conditions didn’t really suit anyone, not in the least a team that has so far utilised a high completion rate (and not Ethan Strange who got hit by more banana peels than a lap of Mario Kart).

The two teams approached the game slightly differently. The Raiders played tight to the ruck for the early going, trying to win the middle before getting any fancier. That Joey Taps (15 for 147m, 69 post contact) was the only Canberra middle with over 100m wasn’t evidence of side overwhelmed. The metres for both teams were slightly weighted to the Warriors (1712 -1562). But it did display that they didn’t walk over their opposition as they’d done to the Tigers and Knights. Every carry was it’s own event.

There were no poor performers in the middle rotation, and the back five did their work on the ground too, all cracking 100 on the ground. Jordan Rapana cooked himself taking so many carries (28 on the game for 205m and 61 post contact). He also had nine tackle breaks, two line breaks, a try assist, a line break assist. How he’s doing this at 103 is beyond me. Jamal Fogarty’s boot again subsidised the work the engine room couldn’t.

It wasn’t a dominant platform but it was functional enough for Canberra’s playmakers to work off. The Raiders looked best going to the right, scored twice there, and created another line break. Matt Timoko was obviously a huge part of that, scoring the Milk’s first on the end of well-worked shift in which both Fogarty and Rapana dug deep into the line like ticks searching for blood. It was enough to get Timoko a bit of space and he went past one defender and over another to score. That right edge looked far more threatening after Zac Hosking replaced Elliott Whitehead after 20 minutes or so. Hosking’s lines are faster, more dynamic and generally more threatening. It forced defenders to stay closer to Fogarty ball-playing, and created the space that forced Marcelo Montoya to pick one of Rapa, ‘Mokes or Cotric. He chose wrong, and Matty T put Cotric in for the Raiders second.

It’d be tempting to say that the Raiders didn’t get anything going headed left. There were plenty of occasions their attack stopped like someone was about to yell ‘Mum’ (that’s a Bluey joke for the non-parents). As mentioned earlier Strange struggled with his footing and it meant he needed to load up to take on the line, like the road-runner about to get moving. He still nearly scored a try (disallowed incorrectly) through his now familiar mix of power and fast-feet. He made some good decisions to pass long or short, and some imperfect ones.

But it lacked creativity, and at times looked tentative and unsure. I guess this is growing up (insert guitar riff). Strange and Hudson Young are such unconventional players; they’ll find cohesion eventually, and it will be beautiful chaos, but for now it’s still developing. Insert a healthy Seb Kris, gussy up the scrum plays (we can come up with something more than one out for X or Mokes right?), get better service and literally any deception from the dummy-half and it’s all going to help Strange, and the offence more generally.

But at the moment it’s unsophisticated and it means that when good teams can keep their discipline it becomes a tough slog for the Milk. It’s all so goddamn overt. Powerful. Fast, but without a hint of pretension. That’s just where this team is right now. They need more variety and precision in their movements. They need literally any deception around the ruck to give their first receivers time and space to create. They rely on not making errors. So when they do (hi Nic) they can be downright devastating.

And it meant that spent this game duking it out but definitely on the ropes. Copping kncoks to the head but still standing, and even throwing a few back. The examination of their defence by the Warriors was the most thorough they’ve faced this year. It was brutal in the middle but New Zealand were only there to find out how to get away from there. They were less worried about winning the middle as a be-all-and-end-all and rather as just something to give them a capacity to get back to testing the Raiders’ edges.

And it was a difficult test. The Warriors sent all manner of attacking movements at Ethan Strange. Plenty of moments were imperfect, but he was helped by Young’s (mostly) brilliant cover work around him. He missed 8 tackles for the game, and in my view actually did well considering, even saving a try with what is quickly becoming a patented cover tackle. But the Warriors still scored twice coming this direction, and as importantly kept coming this way in the middle of sets whenever they wanted quick ruck to move off. On the right the Raiders mostly held fast, but one half-error from Zac Hosking to turn his body in was all that was needed for Luke Metcalfe to seal the game.

Despite these imperfections it was impressive. The Warriors attack is far more sophisticated than the Milk’s, putting defenders two and three in in unenviable positions of having to read where the ball goes as attackers fan out like the crazy 88 circling The Bride. Hopoate watched Fanua-Blake go inside him. Hosking watched Metcalfe do similar. On other occasions it took stunning individual efforts like covering across on the other side of the field to stop a try, Strange doing the same on the other side moments later. Or Xavier Savage proving his passage from boy to man with his incredible one-man-show to bring down Fanua-Blake with the try line insight. It was structurally robust. It was individually breathtaking. More often that not they took what was thrown at them. These are the questions Canberra has failed to answer in recent years. They are getting it right a lot this season.

But they didn’t get it right enough in this game, at least not enough to mask their vanilla offence. That’s nothing to panic about. This was all meant to be a work in progress. Key parts are still fitting together and that they can compete well with an elite team like the Warriors is proof positive that they are not also rans this year.

How much they can compete and how far they can go will come from expanding their attacking repertoire while maintaining their newfound defensive resilience. It will come with patience for young players like Strange, giving them the time and space they need to learn hard lessons and continue to improve. It will come from people like Jordan Rapana thinking Sisyphus is a coward and pushing that goddamn boulder even harder. It will come from standing strong when things are hard, like they did in this game. The next step is turning courage into creative clarity.

What is clear is that our hopes that they had a real foundation were not dinted by this loss. This is a good footy team, with potential for much more. In a year that most had pegged for worrying about avoiding the spoon while watching the horizon, the promise that there’s something immediate the care about is exhilarating. In a game in which a finals team were fighting for their season, and gave them literally everything they had the Raiders fought tooth and nail and though defeated, left respected.

This is no lost season. This team is no patsies. They are ready for more.

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