BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders were subject to an exposition by the Brisbane Broncos. Every weakness was tested, every inexperience exploited. Canberra weren’t as bad as the scoreline demonstrated but as far off the pace as it suggested. There were many lessons learned in this game and to make matters worse these were compounded by injury. While the immediate path ahead is troubling there was plenty to suggest the sun will shine on the nation’s capital once again.

Playing the Broncos is a test of the structures and ability of any team. The middles run at forty-five degree angles, desperate to get to the space where edge backrowers and halves defend. Their backs run the opposite direction, heading on similarly obtuse angles back towards the middle. X marks the spot, that is until they spot a weakness, then they charge toward it like a vicious horde in search of plunder. They do it all with one thing they have in abundance: speed.

The speed makes it hard and it’s not *just* speed in Walsh, Mam and Staggs. Pat Carrigan spent the majority of the game running at Ethan Strange and Hudson Young. This was not because he set up on the right edge but because he would head on weird angles to get outside the Canberra middles to get at those defenders. Getting outside the oncoming defence requires pace. It meant that he could use his bigger body to turn that contact into quick rucks and big metres. The backs would use that pace to earn similar, dancing in and out and between middles whenever they took yardage. One run in either direction would find them winning contact, and the Broncos would use that as a precedent that allowed them to shift, getting Reece Walsh or Ezra Mam into a match-up with an often stupefied Raiders defender.

It’s a completely different system. Canberra loves the mud of the middle. Their fathers were mudders. Mothers were mudders. The Broncos are like Principal Skinner. They only go to the middle in order to find out how to get away from it. One hit up to the middle is almost always followed by a edge being tested, either by a lightning quick shift or a middle being quick enough to just run it to the edge. When the Broncos are playing with the unhinged pace of a toddler bouncing off the walls after too much sugar it becomes hard to keep up.

It tested the edges. Hudson Young made 36 tackles on one edge. Ata made 38 in mixed duty. Ethan Strange seemed the target of every second run, not by backs or halves, but by middles trying to get him and Huddo involved in defence. The same occurred on the other edge. Ata, Simi and Timoko all felt like they were making far more early set tackles than they normally would. The middles tried to push up and out to cut off the space but they couldn’t. It felt like Canberra were trying to catch a wasp loose inside the house with nothing but their bare hands and a brave heart. The Broncos just kept bouncing off the walls and finding space.

As mentioned it meant Reece Walsh got into the expanse on multiple occasions and it ended poorly for the Milk. The first try of the game Walsh changed his line with the ball in mid-air and made Matt Timoko look like he just gazed into Medusa’s eyes. On another he went outside Ethan Strange, legs slipping through the defenders grasp like true love and innocence. Ezra Mam could have scored, or created, three or four tries hazing the Raiders makeshift right edge in the second half. A few passes here or there could have made it worse. It only seems fair it didn’t because Canberra didn’t really deserve it.

This was compounded by errors that led to tries, particularly when the game collapsed like Gotham Stadium on Bane’s command in the first half. One try came direct from a Chevy Stewart dropped bomb, one of two he put down. Another started when Danny Levi lost the ball at the ruck; it ended with a prop catching the bomb and dumping it back on a standard jack-and-jill-and-girls-in-the-DMs play. Xavier Savage got caught too close to the sideline on a own-half shift and Strange was left tackling Walsh’s ethereal glamour (but not his body) moments later. When the game is getting away you have to be perfect. Canberra wasn’t, Brisbane were. It was the difference in that period and it ended the game.

In defence they looked like a parent on the verge of a nervous breakdown: barely keeping the chaos together. In attack they looked so close to being there without actually following through it was almost tantric. So many ideas were a timing, a slip or an error away from being a good one. Savage was in the clear outside twice, and didn’t score from either (though he did score later). Another shift was Strange finding more boot away from finding outside runners and a likely try. Levi’s excellent grubber for Young should have been a try. Timoko and Schiller both took intercepts *most* of the way. Canberra didn’t curl up into a ball. But continuing to play expansively was necessitated; and they didn’t have the connection nor the conditions for it.

They did their best. Joe Tapine outright refused to give up. His 178m on the ground (83 post contact) was impressive, particularly given that outside of the first ten minutes Canberra couldn’t afford to spend too much time grinding. Josh Papalii was also excellent; he’s looking more agile than the last few years, and has even added a bit of ball play to what he was doing. Ethan Strange did well taking over the game when Jamal Fogarty went down with injury. He doesn’t have Jamal’s boot but who does. Savage was also excellent outside the aforementioned drops. Seb Kris twice pulled in-and-aways that were so close to being breaks. But they weren’t.

It was a tough night for most players but Chevy Stewart got to learn the lesson in prime time. He was incessantly peppered with bombs and dropped two. One resulted in a try, one nearly did, and he was out of position for the Billy Walters grubber/regather. Even when he was in the right spots or catching kicks he was hit in his unprotected body with such a force I would have just started crying, pulled my shoes off and gone full Richie Tenenbaum. That he kept tearing into the defence, probing around the ruck and searching for a way to get involved was impressive. That wasn’t so much a examination as royal commission. He didn’t pass but he did get credit for lessons learned, and that he was showing that he’d learned them in the second half was a good sign for how quickly he can improve. He’ll be better for it. Now he knows just how hard the NRL can be.

He wasn’t the only one learning out there. Simi Sasagi was brought in to start on the edge and ended playing half, where he struggled in defence. That’s fair. He’s now played centre, backrow and halfback for the Milk. He’s looked good at the one he’s meant to play, and I expect that’s where he’ll spend the rest of his time in Canberra. Ethan Strange became the lead half, and immediately it became clear that’s an unnecessary anchor on his development, restricting the opportunities he can have to really play to his strengths taking on the line.

Unfortunately more responsibility is likely to be thrust on him with the injury to Jamal Fogarty. We’ll have more to say about this tomorrow but he’s out for at least 12 weeks. The forgotten man Kaeo Weekes will be keen to get a shot (as may Adam Cook, perhaps a more like-for-like replacement than Weekes). And with Ethan Sanders on the way soon we may get to see the future well before we were expecting. It’s been a horror run for the Milk. Rapana, Horsburgh, Hosking, Fogarty. Someone throw some garlic on Joe Tapine because I can’t think of a player the Raiders could afford to lose less.

Games, and injuries, like this are likely to put a dampener on the positivity around this side and ceiling on their potential for this season. The young guys, the replacements, are all improving but to expect them to deliver what was possible with all hands on deck isn’t realistic. They didn’t give up in this game and I don’t expect them to tomorrow. There will be better days. There may be bumps in the future; no one would expect them to continue to contend without their host of injured stars. But the horizon of 2025 and beyond is still progressing well.

This game was a wound. It exposed the frailty in Canberra’s immediate situation, both in how one of the best teams in the competition manhandled them. It also exposed the challenges in the roster with more injuries to players and positions they could least afford. But it was not mortal. Despite it all there was enough brightness in the rain that show that while the journey to the top is temporarily delayed, the destination remains the same. This Raiders outfit continues to build. It might not be for this year, but it was never meant to be.

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