BY DAN

Courage is a funny thing.

Sometimes it’s easy to be brave when no one expects anything of you. You can defiantly puff your chest out, poke the bully in his chest and create havoc. In footy, teams do that and surprise oppositions that had come for walk not a fight. You can usually tell when this is happening early. One side has heaps of energy, scores an early try, capitalises on an error, and it becomes a *bad night* for the favourite as the underdog throws caution and the kitchen sink to the wind and rides the good times. It’s low stakes fun. An ambush that turns into a avalanche that turns into a party.

This was not that night.

The Canberra Raiders 26-24 victory over Manly was courageous but it was no ambush. This was a quieter struggle. A battle against last week, against themselves, against the circumstances of the season, of the game that found them down twenty odd points or near enough on multiple occasions. A battle against the forgivable desire to panic, to throw out the baby, the bathwater and anything resembling a plan and just try *something* because it was all so goddamn frustrating. It was 17 men, the demons that accompanied them to the footy, and the raging sea of battle they stood in the middle of.

That’s the hard bit about fighting. There’s big moments when you can stand up and make noise and feel big. Where going for the haymaker looks brave but is an implicit acceptance that you never had a chance. Real guts comes from perseverance when the pay-off isn’t clear, or is a promise that feels as close as a memory on the breeze. It’s the effort after the effort. The willingness to keep going not just when times are tough, but after they are. To do little things and keep doing them. To trust that if you bundled all those small puzzle pieces you’d eventually build a beautiful vista.

Canberra did that. Eventually.

It took trust to build like this because the disaster from which they were rebuilding was as profound as the pride on every Canberrans face right now. It was man-made, so to speak. Manly scored five tries in this game and they all involved the Raiders helping them. The first try came from a penalty, three set-restarts and a beautifully worked line from Tom Trbojevic. The second came from cold, a bad idea poorly executed by Matt Timoko. The third try mixed the two; a high shot from Emre Guler got Manly into attack, and Ethan Strange failed to clean up a kick. The fourth try started with a penalty, and no matter how many people Hudson Young tried to tackle on that sweeping movement, it wasn’t enough.

It was a pain constructed for self immolation. 20-0 is a pretty big hole at the best of times, 24-6 is hardly better. If that’s a surprise well-sprung then it’s gone about as well as coming home from a work trip a little early to find lingerie and loud noises emanating from your bedroom. Most observers (me included) were ready to throw the towel. When you’ve barely scored a point in the best part of 120 minutes of footy it doesn’t feel like you’re about to go on a run.

The commentators said it wasn’t as bad as it seemed and they were right. Despite all this you could see improvements. The middle were fighting. A week out from being rolled by their opposition the resilience of these defenders had been rediscovered. Everyone stepped up, but a special shout-out to Morgan Smithies and Danny Levi. They’d had the hardest time last week but this week they were far more resolute. Levi had several critical goal-line defensive efforts. Smithies made 40 odd tackles because it feels like he does it for fun. Shit he probably wakes up and tackles a tree for thirty minutes just to feel the sting. All in all it meant that Canberra were if not controlling, then not losing field position for the first time in ages, as long as they didn’t give away penalties.

Better defence in the middle made the lives of the edge defenders easier, and while they were far from perfect they didn’t feel harried like recent weeks. Tries were still scored but they were moments rather than structural faults. Canberra defended their goal-line successfully on multiple occasions. At one stage in the first half the stat flashed up that it was Manly that had been tackled an inordinate number of times in the Raiders redzone. Wew, what a turnup!

They weren’t suddenly the ’85 Bears but it did feel like a return to normalcy. Elliott Whitehead was back and despite looking like he was about to die the entire game, it brought a calmness and equanimity to the right edge defence. On the left side Ethan Strange and Hudson Young simply refused to ever give up, despite their imperfections. And as the game wore on and Manly tried to win the game by grinding out a victory, and Canberra weren’t giving away penalties hand-over-fist, suddenly a good attack felt as threatening as a puppy with a chew toy. A team that could barely keep out a breeze in recent weeks was building with brick again. Manly smashed into the middle. Canberra just wiped the blood away and smiled back.

With the ball they played with patience. They kept to their system, pushing up through the middle, offloading more than in recent weeks and trying to play a bit of broken-field footy off the back of it, trying to manufacture points desperately but not hysterically. Field position was a big part of this game and Joe Tapine did his work (12 hit ups for 162m, 59 post contact). Hudson Young (12 for 114m) refused to take a break. Trey Mooney (8 for 76m) was a point of difference when he came on.

But like previous weeks Canberra could do that basic bit, but more than that felt a step too far. 20-0, 20-6, 24-6. These all felt like insurmountable tasks. When Smell stuck out a duke and intercepted a set play and found a miracle flick pass to Kaeo Weekes it felt almost helpless. How are you meant to chase down twenty odd points when *that’s* what it takes?

Canberra stayed patient but didn’t suddenly find fluidity. So often a shift to either side ended with a player having to step back from the precipice of no space in search of a hope, a break, a sliver of light. The battle in the middle made that hard. The inexperience and lack of combinations on their edges compounded the matter. Hudson Young and Bert Hopoate seemed rarely in sync, and it meant that Ethan Strange was stopping and popping off his left more than a member of the Jabbawockeez. Kaeo Weekes wasn’t having much more fun on the right – Matt Timoko spent more of his day tipping passes on that actually running the ball. That’s something to work on.

But they stuck to the task and waited for an opportunity. Just as they had offered Manly a couple of tries for free in the first half, Manly returned the favour. A dropped kick off reignited the game and became a crash-ball try to Whitehead (a great read by Levi). Another try followed after when a ball hit Corey Waddell’s shoulder and landed in Smell’s lap. Call it a square up.

And then with the game on the line their young halves stepped up. After 65 minutes of battling for field position the Raiders were given a sniff and made the right, and courageous, choice each time. Kaeo Weekes’s kick for Nic Cotric to score was brilliant, in the idea as well as the execution. It wasn’t high risk, just a willingness to back himself with the belief that he spent all off-season telling reporters Coach Stuart was instilling in him. Play what you see. There are no rules. Kick on the second tackle for your winger because you see the fullback out of position. It was so perfectly executed that even a shocking bounce couldn’t stop the fact that two Raiders were well ahead of the play.

Then with the game on the line, a dropped ball, and Strange too spotted Trbojevic where he shouldn’t be, and Young where he needed to be. Again execution was prime, but trust and belief that the judgement was right, and the play could be executed was more impressive. A player with more experience would have to calm the demons in his head. This 19 year old boy was calm and resolute.

The fearlessness of their young halves at this crucial juncture was impressive. The courage to stick to their processes was one thing, but the knowledge of when it was time to move beyond, and belief that it would work out, was another. It speaks to players well coached as to where the guard rails are and why they can’t always support you. There are choices you have to make and live with. Weekes and Strange both made theirs with full hearts and open eyes. And Canberra reaped the rewards.

This is an important victory. A famous victory. It’s hard to overstate how written-off Canberra were this week, and how much it took for them to stick to their plan and try to win the way they know how. They could have panicked, abandoned everything, and changed on the hop and hope that it would magically turn around. Instead they stuck to who they are. Worked their assess off. Took the opportunities that came. It was mature. It was intelligent. It was lionhearted.

The road to hell is paved with moral victories. A broken team dragged back to competitiveness through the quiet courage of old heads and the audacity of youth only to fail at the final hurdle is a great story but winning is better. Canberra kept their collective head when they had every right to lose it. After hell and a five-day turnaround they could have taken the applause for gutting out the game and been happy to be there. Instead they took their winnings, their promise of a ‘good-job bad-luck’ and a pat on the head, and risked it all on something greater.

After the last few weeks that took more than just courage. They had the temerity to believe in themselves as individuals and a collective. It showed them and us that winning doesn’t require magic. Just a cool head, a proud heart, and trust that they have both the ethic and the talent to beat any side in this competition. That’s a real lesson you can hang on to.

This victory may not turn their season around but it could define them for years to come.

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