BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders 48-24 loss was abject and true. Like someone reading your diary, hearing your every insecurity and nodding along. Canberra were beaten in the middle. They were beaten on the edges. They were given every opportunity to do the right thing, and of good mind chose otherwise. Forget whether they can keep touch with the eight. If the Raiders continue this trend the outcome could be far more dire.

This was not how it was meant to go. It wasn’t how it normally goes. The Raiders normally hit rock-bottom and bounce back like the protagonist in your favourite rom-com. Instead this team turned last week’s capitulation into a companion piece, a ‘toilet scene from Trainspotting’ to this week’s ‘baby scene from Trainspotting’ (and I don’t mean when he comes off the rack). It’s all the same set of problems and the same hopeless situation.

The worrying thing was they felt it too. Faced with a team that wanted to fight they seemed panicked, unable to envision victory, backed into a corner and throwing haymakers at everyone and no one. They were meant to be the fired up team, the team redlining their way to victory. When the other team had the temerity to similarly hit the nitrous they were hysterical. It resulted in a second week of astounding and confounding errors.

Ethan Strange tried to do too much and threw away good ball and bad. An intercept became the field position for the first try. A forced pass that went forward and to no one marked the turnover and territory for the third try. It was the worst half of his young career, a lesson in how not to dominate a game, but also the first evidence of him feeling he has to *do it all* for the Raiders to succeed.

Many will talk about experience and it’s fair to say that Strange’s panic reflected a limited amount of experience in a difficult situation, but others made errors that can’t be blamed on a lack of games. Jordan Rapana had a ‘Chevy Stewart v the Broncos’ first half, his eleventh in the last three weeks, then followed it up with with an error to start the second and turn a dead game into a debacle. He also threw a belter of a pass, except it was straight to Adam Doueihi, who ran 80 metres the other way to score. Hudson Young was in three scoring opportunities and chose to run, pass, run, instead of pass, run, pass. Elliott Whitehead decided crashing over from nine on the last was the play, only it didn’t come off and it quitely turned over possession when Canberra needed more.

Canberra simply could not do the right thing. Even when they did good things they panicked and turned them bad. Kaeo Weekes chose to run it on the last, made a tremendous break, and instead of hitting Matt Timoko or Nic Cotric on his outside, or grubbering ahead, passed it to a marked Danny Levi on the inside. As mentioned above Huddo nearly created a game-changing try out of nothing, only he passed instead of trusting himself to beat the 11th man after beating 10 others (numbers approximate). Canberra did dumb things, and given the chance to do smart things, turned on Two and a Half Men, poured themselves a glass of metho and lit a giant stogie.

The frenzy that resulted belied a real problem the Raiders were facing. Once they were behind the game there seemed a real worry in the playing group that they had to find a way to score and fast, and they weren’t sure they could. Every moment in good ball was an extra pass to throw, a risk to take. It demonstrated they didn’t have a plan to get there, outside of hoping Strange or Weekes could turn something into nothing. Strange initially tried to do too much then didn’t get the ball for thirty minutes. Weekes looked good given the space of the opposition being a player short. Rapana was again in everything, and that only highlighted the problem they’d created.

All were faced with a defence that knew Rapana’s role as first receiver in attack meant that there’s no fullback to worry about out the back. This also meant that they were also faced with a defence unafraid of sophistication or shifting play or angles, able to happily jump the outside men. The only way through was on foot; that’s how nearly all Canberra’s points came in the second half, and how all their best attack was mustered. But relying on your creator to beat a man first before they can create is not a sustinable way to stay in games. They need a fullback on those shift movements. Which means they need a halfback inside them. Jamal Fogarty we miss you.

The fluster and bluster approach to attack exacerbated (and was exacerbated by) an existing problem: Canberra couldn’t consistently win the middle. It’s tempting to say a lack of ball meant they were on a hiding to nothing, but this was evident before they went and lost their way. The Raiders were in a battle for the middle and wilting. Too often the Tigers were winning contact, turning 50 and 60 metres into a common occurrence in sets. That’s not winning football.

This, as you’ll not be surprised to hear, resulted in tries. On their second try the Tigers took over from their own goal-line, and went 65 metres up field barely a pass wide of the ruck before an attacking kick landed in their laps. Even that was just another opportunity for the middles to disappoint, with dummy-half on the next ruck running to the goal-line before Morgan Smithies and Josh Papalii had turned around to face him. That was tiredness of chasing the play back. Emre Guler and Danny Levi had no such excuse when brushed by Sione Fainu for the third try.

This of course put pressure on the edges to make decisions and tackles in difficult situations but they were not blameless. In fact the opposite was also true; when faced with any stiffness in the middle third the Tigers waited a tackle, hit an edge for easy metres and often more. The first try of the second half was three tackles of glorious “we’re back” brutality in the middle before they sent it wide and went through the Raiders like a training run.

These problems are all so interlinked you can understand why the situation feels so forlorn. This isn’t *just* losing because you’re inexperienced, or stupid, or because your middle or your edges are weak. This is total systemic failure. Each issue feeds into the next. Each problem impacts the last. The whole structure collapses. The panic is just people trying to put out the fires that have already moved on to create other issues.

That’s why this feels like more than another loss. Instead of a moment to return from it was both capitulation to, and confirmation of, every fear every fan has held for this side in the darkest corners of their minds. This was a week to get right, and instead it went wrong, leaving a side holding a problem as it’s only solution. Turning it up to 11 has been proven woefully inadequate as a solution. Holding on like Outkast or Adele or Wilson fucking Phillips hasn’t worked either. Mother Hubbard is looking in the cupboard for a plan and all she’s got is a wooden spoon.

Many will call for mass change. The 1-17s will rain down upon the Raiders social media community with great vengeance and furious anger. But who can be blamed for looking elsewhere? Outside of a few middles I don’t think there’s anyone in that side that can lay claim to their spot as a birthright. Others will tell you to hold the line and show faith but that’s what was given this week. Instead of the usual ‘fire up for victory’ the Raiders fucked around. Now they risk making this who they are.

They don’t have to. I’m not saying they can turn this around next week. Lord knows I’ll be in the stands for the Melbourne game, wondering where those salad days of ‘winning games’ in Melbourne went to. Right now I’m more worried this isn’t rock bottom. But they can’t just fall into a heap and hope that Jamal and Zac Hosking will simply pick them up and dust them off, and turn them back into the finals team they briefly were before the injuries took our heroes.

Canberra just need to find a way to get width without moving their fullback to halfback and playing two five-eighths. They need to find a way to win the middle without having them live there in good ball and bad. To play tough footy without losing their mind to the grind, or innovative footy without panicking like a stranger in a dark alley just asked for a chat.

It’s easy to say and near impossible to do. But it’s the situation the Raiders have put themselves in. I’ve no doubt they’ve got the spirit for the fight. It’s just whether they have the right plan and the courage to back it.

Because right now they’re swinging wildly and only hurting themselves.

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