BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders 24-20 victory over the Canterbury Bulldogs was brilliantly stupid. Courageously insane. They overcame themselves as much as their opposition, struggling like an animal trying to get out of a trap, only they set the trap, and they somehow got out with only minor injuries. It was wizardry. It was sorcery. At Magic Round it would be wrong if the Raiders won another way. At the moment this is who they are.

This was not a well-played game. Neither side played smart footy. This was two drunk idiots swinging wildly at each other, the victor determined by who was too stubborn to stand down. At it was these beautiful idiots. These obstinate lunatics. How do you spend six minutes two men down, 16 short of a full complement, and somehow come out the other side the more energetic, the more resourceful? How do you concede four tries in 11 minutes, and somehow not fall to pieces? It’s not like they’re cool-headed masters surveying their domain. They make things difficult because they don’t know how to do things easy.

For a good chunk of this game the scoreboard bore little relationship to what was happening on the field. It started as a relatively calm affair, two sides testing each other out through the middle. The Raiders middle did their best with the ball. Joey Tapine (14 for 153, 57 post contact) led the charge. Hudson Young (14 for 132m) kept working all game. Trey Mooney’s twenty minute stint in the second half was as impressive as Emre Guler’s was uninspiring (though his second stint at the end of the game had some good moments).

But it was all workmanlike. Canberra were working their way up the field, kicking the ball to corners and waiting on an error. Two mistakes came and two tries resulted; balls falling in the lap of Xavier Savage and Seb Kris. It was a stunning outcome. It was like two boxers walking out to face each other, circling and sending preparatory jabs, only for one pugilist to hit himself in the nose. It was disciplined footy in a sense but it meant they played the game between the 20s. Sixty odd minutes into the game the Bulldogs had been tackled in the Raiders red-zone near 30 times. The Milk had only managed to make it to the other end for two.

While they were grinding Canterbury were playing more sideways football. Sometimes it was shifting for the sake of it. Sometimes it was with more purpose, and they generally looked a far more enterprising side that the Milk. Always it was designed to put either Viliame Kikau or Stephen Crichton in a one-on-one with a defender. The Raiders edges were the focus – Strange (23), Young (33), Weekes (27) and Whitehead (37) all made a disproportionate amount of tackles.

For the most part they were impressive. Crichton was met by the wall of Strange more often than not, and given one of these players is an Origin star and the other still a teenager it’s all the more amazing. He scored once, but only when Strange had no centre help because his centre was playing fullback. Kiraz scored on that wing too, but only when the Raiders were down two players. There was no poor decision, read or reaction. Just not enough people. Kaeo Weekes and Elliott Whitehead were also exemplary, and by the end of the game Kikau seemed exhausted (and perhaps injured?) with the attention he got.

Given their opposition scored four tries, and blew a few more, it may seem strange to say that these defenders stood up to the test of the moving ball. When the Dogs did get around and through the Raiders it was generally because of exhaustion or poor efforts elsewhere. One break that ended with Rapana ruining Connor Tracey started because Tapine’s effort inside-out wasn’t what it needed to be. Another try was blown when Jacob Preston dropped the ball, but it came because Seb Kris jumped the play and ended up with no-one.

And if it wasn’t defensive errors, then their own sheer idiocy compounded the matter. Rapana turned the dial up to 11. He gifted the Dogs a try by taking out Xavier Savage on a kick, then got sin-binned taking out Josh Addo-Carr. A try was scored on the next set. He made at least two handling errors close to his line, dropped a bomb that I’m like 60 per cent sure I could take, and gave away another penalty and near-bin late in the game. If your fullback is going to get binned the worst thing you can do is have another player get binned on a hip drop, which Josh Papalii did. If that happens you definitely don’t need to give away a late set penalty, which Hudson Young did. Both moments led directly to tries too.

It was silly football not befitting this side. But while four tries had been scored in eleven minutes Canberra were too stubborn to take the hint. Somehow they came out of that period only down by eight points. Even weirder they seemed more energetic. Their opposition’s shifting, while still dangerous, was manageable and whenever it wasn’t the cover defence scrambled harder than a cafe on Saturday morning.

With 13 men on the field in the defensive line their opposition seemed suddenly controllable. Their final try came after holding out their opposition in the red zone for the best part of seven minutes. It was impressive, but it was also courageous. Player after player made another effort, covered a mistake by another. Smell covered for Weekes. Weekes for Timoko. Timoko returned the favour. Effort after effort, like Trey fucking Mooney being the person to clean up a kick on the second repeat set of several. Fuck your brains, your strategy, your fancy Ivy League ideas. This was just the sheer collective insanity manifesting as persistence.

But they still needed points. It’s a theme of recent times, where without all the normal parts of their attack they have become like a counter-attacking soccer team. Back their defence to absorb the pressure, wait for a mistake, and pounce. Their first two tries were extreme evidence of this. The second half efforts were evidence that there is more to this side that that. They scored when Strange held a ball so perfectly into the line that Young was almost shocked into dropping the ball by the amount of space he was wandering into. The game-winning try was even better, because it showed three different bits of Canberra’s future – Trey Mooney capping his powerful impact in the second half by ploughing into the line, dumping an offload that Weekes took sixty odd metres, only for Strange to hold the ball up perfectly again for Young.

It was telling that when his elder statesmen were busy losing their heads that Strange kept his. Those were grown-ass-man plays. He didn’t panic; he waited for the opposition to make their choice, and exploited it. He could have looked for a heroic cut-out pass, the kind we all throw to tie up the grand final before we also kick the sideline conversion to win. Instead he took the ball to the line and took what was offered. For so much of the game Canberra were like a team full of infantry, propelling down the field into fire without much more of a plan than that. When they needed it he was the leader able to identify a weakness to exploit. Look at him. He is the captain now.

It’s only two points, but what an important two points. Canberra have had two heart-attacks in back to back games but they’ve taken four points from them. Right now when they’re without players and not at their best it seems their ceiling might be with ‘chaotic victory’. The key bit there is winning, because when their parts all come back maybe they can raise their potential back to where it seemed earlier in the year. It’s a long season, and they’re building.

Lord knows what will come from the judiciary. Tapine, Papalii, Levi, Rapana and Whitehead were all put on report. Canberra could be playing to the next bye short of half their goddamn side. If that had happened and they’d not take the two points it would have been catastrophic. As it is it’s just a dropped glass on a big night out. We’ll clean up the mess; what matters is the joy of the evening and the quality of the yarn.

The Canberra Raiders test your heart and swell your soul. They break your remotes and make you believe. This team is as mindless as a rock and courageous as a dog defending its best friend. This team is not good right now but they are valiant.

And right now that’s enough.

Hello. If you like our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or share this on social media, I’ll give you one (1) music recommendation. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you have anything you want addressed.