BY DAN

The story of Canberra Raiders 36-22 loss to Cronulla was a foundation destabilised by insidious errors. Instead of underpinning their success they undermined it. Instead of re-affirming everything they’ve built this season, they fell apart in a mess of errors on both sides of the ball. It was ugly, it was frustrating. But there is a way back.

What was hard about this wasn’t so much the outcome as the process that got it there. The Milk were unable to replicate the simple game plan that had served them so well this season. Fast and pointed running was replaced with rumbling and handling errors. Courageous and smart defence was replaced with critical missed tackles and moments of sheer lunacy. This day turned out nothing like they had planned.

Errors, handing or otherwise, have to be the starting point of any discussion of this game. Canberra blew through three attacking sets in the first eight minutes with stone cold ‘dropping the cake’ handling errors. They coupled that with a further three in the back end of the first half, only completing one (1) set in the last fifteen minutes of the half. Three errors led directly to tries, one from Corey Horsburgh, one from Xavier Savage, and one from Jamal Fogarty getting caught with the ball on the last. Another try came a kick defusal effort so poor Paul Carriage is having nightmares about it. The other two tries were simply a case of helpful penalties getting the opposition into a scoring position.

It was frustrating that the Raiders would gift a quality opposition such friendly position. It was particularly galling since the way they were going to beat the Sharks was by bashing them through the middle and forcing them to spread the ball without any space. Instead they let them overcome any potential middle disadvantage by doing that job for them, and simply gifting them attacking sets like they thought it would get them laid.

That meant that the Sharks got plenty of ball in good position and the Raiders didn’t have the defensive ability to turn them away (unless Cronulla helpfully dropped the ball). When it’s that kind of night handling errors seem to beget defensive ones. The first try came when Zac Hosking couldn’t cover out and Fogarty turned his hips out before the ball got there. Another try came when James Schiller did the opposite, not trusting Matt Timoko to cover out, and holding too tight as Ronaldo Mulitalo took the space offered outside him. Perhaps he knew something we didn’t, because on the other side of halftime Timoko continued his worst defensive night in many by imitating a statue as Kayal Iro ran past him (one of two line breaks from Timoko defensive misdeeds). By the time the last two tries came it was almost relieving that they came from movements that were simply too good, rather than came from outright defensive lapses.

It was dispiriting to say this least. When your game plan is as simple as Canberra’s you can’t afford to get the simple things wrong. Instead the Raiders doubled down on this as the game wore on, giving away the ball so much they couldn’t even build on their talent advantage in the middle. The Sharks didn’t throw heaps at them. Almost every set went middle, middle, two-pass shift to hit the Raiders’ right edge, followed by a three pass shift to hit the left. As Canberra have shown in recent weeks you don’t need a complex game plan, but whatever you do needs to be executed well. Cronulla did their part. Canberra were not so effective.

Canberra’s middle had moments. Josh Papalii (10 for 101m) and Joe Tapine (16 for 169 and 70 plus post contact) were both better than their colleagues, and Morgan Smithies continues to prove reliable in the middle. But the machine men never dominated as they should have. In particular as the game wore on they kept finding themselves having to catch up defensively in sets, leading to infringements, metres and all kinds of other bad stuff. It was particularly the case for the rotation forwards, weakened by Ata Mariota having to shift to the edge when Hosking went off with a head injury. They got dominated, unable to contain the ruck at any point and offering up their own handling errors with frustrating regularity. No one covered themselves in glory, but Red looked so particularly underdone they should call him blue.

It was maddening because the Raiders early lead had put them in a good position, at least on the scoreboard. Now let’s not get carried away. The 18 point lead after 23 minutes flattered the Milk, born on the same mess that was offered back for the following 57 minutes. The Sharks dropped as much, if not more ball than the Green Machine. Danny Levi and Savage both scored tries that were as much about a listless opposition defence as their own good work. Not only are they not repeatably against good defences, but in Savage’s case, it represented a bizarre insistence on running the same set play off scrums, throwing the ball to either X (on the left) or Timoko (on the right) and seeing if they can beat the six defenders standing in their face. I presume it’s designed to get to get to an edge and set up a shift back the other way. Something more ambitious is surely available.

This concoction of mistakes was calamitous and belied a side that had proven to have a higher ceiling that this. Perhaps this is the low floor. Perhaps this sort of thing is to be expected on occasion. Dropping a shit-ton of ball can happen. Losing the middle to a team that barely has one is one of those weird things that happens in sport. Defensive mishaps are common with inexperienced teams, particularly ones with new combinations and newer ones forced by injury. Jamal Fogarty is a great player but this game as much as anything displayed the limits that exist when he gets a shit-ton of touches (50) and his halves partner doesn’t (26). At 34 Jordan Rapana can’t be expected to save the middle’s graces by filling in at A routinely in middle-pitch sets, still get back to field kicks, do yardage work and lead an attack. When you put that much on two players who before this year had never been the lead man in attack you’re going to get inconsistent outcomes.

But what’s frustrating is that Canberra have proven better than this already. They shown the ability to match it with good teams. They were very much in this game despite *gestures in the general direction of blood, pain and wasteland*. If they do the simple things right they’ve shown they can compete, even without elite work in the spine.

Indeed they did it in this game. Canberra should be heartened that even in a debacle of a game when they did the things according to plan they looked excellent. The good work for James Schiller’s try contained much of the best things the Raiders did. Savage’s burst to open up the middle was an excellent run, his second of the set after his first imbued the momentum in the set he later took advantage of. Fogarty, Hosking and Timoko all made excellently executed inputs. Schiller looked like the man who’s played 80 plus NRL games. The Milk’s last try was a perfect pass from Rapana, making the perfect read as the gravity from planet Timoko sucked in the defence. Alongside Ethan Strange’s solid defence and improving ball-play (his pass to put Savage into space was quality) and there’s no reason to panic. The plan is functional. But no plan, no matter how effective, can work if you make these many errors on both sides of the ball.

There is still a foundation to build on but Canberra must return to it before their next outing. That shouldn’t be hard and starts with a conversation titled Hold the Fucking Ball: a treatise on how not to fuck up. They’ll need to find a(nother) backrower as I presume Zac Hosking will miss next game due to concussion, and Elliott Whitehead’s calf is unlikely to come good in one week (and there’s no way they can rely on him to get through 80 minutes). Ata Mariota did a decent job there (he’s a strong runner, and only once was he defensively on skates) so should at the very least be in the 17. You might have views about Corey Horsburgh, Trey Mooney and what an 18th man means.

But personnel changes aren’t really the solution here. The Raiders simply do not have the buffer in how they play to be profligate and imperfect. Wins will come with more discipline and better execution. It’s not sexy and cliched but mistakes are not something they can weather, at least not in this number. The good news is that they’ve got a proven way to play. If only they’d played that way today.

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