BY ROB

On a sunny Saturday in the Sunshine state the Raiders again turned in a less than stellar performance, this time going down to a Broncos outfit which has found its groove after a horror start to the season.

I think at this point we need to address the lime green (or away white) elephant in the room. For the second year of their existence the NRLW Raiders will probably not be playing finals. They’re now 8th on the ladder, and could drop to 9th if the Dragons snare a win this round.

This game started in the worst possible way with the Broncos kickoff bouncing over the dead ball line after Canberra failed to organise someone to catch it. Ash Quinlan laughed it off, but such humour was dulled moments later when the Broncos shifted to their right and put Shenae Ciesiolka over for her first try.

From there it was a Broncos domination as they consistently trekked down-field (or were piggybacked via penalties). Once inside the Raiders 30m zone they concentrated all their firepower on the Green Machines left edge, using cut out balls and swift running to pull apart soft defence. Ten minutes gone and Ciesiolka had her double.

The Raiders finally managed to wrest control back and utilised some great middle traffic to get set-up at the Broncos end, where a quick left-side play saw Wiki power over and place the ball down.

Sidebar: the Raiders absolutely love the wraparound. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a team use it as much as they do.

Zehara Temera slotted her first conversion and the Raiders had dragged the difference to 6 points. Relief was brief however, as the Broncos hit back just 3 minutes later when Waaka caught a Brigginshaw cross-field kick and scored the Broncos third.

The second half started with a reversal of fortunes when Broncos prop Keilee Joseph inexplicably lost the ball on an opening hit up. After a bit of drama going left the Raiders made the full shift across field with Apii Nicholls getting an excellent pass to Shak Tungai. This being a Raiders game there was of course a downside to scoring, with Nicholls being taken off for a HIA after heavy contact in the scoring play.

The Broncos responded by scoring twice through Julia Robinson in the space of four minutes. Her first try was a very athletic leap for the corner, grounding the ball with her feet off the deck. Her second came from an interception, when Temera threw what looked to be a pretty good pass out the back only for Robinson to latch onto it and run 90 for her second.

It looked as though the Raiders might collapse again at this point, but to their credit they rallied, and through a mix of favourable penalties and excellent yardage fought their way down-field to set up camp. Their first raid saw Kere Matua finish off a scoring play with some magnificent footwork and positional awareness, spinning off defenders and twisting around the final tackler to get the ball down.

Emma Barnes contributed to the scoreboard by simply burrowing between two upright defenders from the play-the-ball, a move which had seen her come up short a bit earlier.

After trailing nearly the entire match the Raiders had drawn level, and for a brief moment looked as though they might pull off one of the all time heists. Alas it was not to be, with poor ball control and cruel ruck penalties giving the Broncos the chance to put Waaka over again.

The Raiders had flourishes of attacking nous in this game, but so much of it was undone by poor follow-up sets. Admittedly they were once again peppered with personnel problems, as well as some extremely dubious officiating (a Broncos knock-on early in the game went completely unnoticed by all concerned, despite Fox league running a replay that showed the error in broad daylight).

Coach Borthwick has just five rounds left at his disposal to try and salvage what he can from this season, but he’s going to have to start making some tough decisions to drag the Raiders out of their current funk.

Let’s hope the magic returns.

Rob is the best human I know so you should follow him on Twitter here. Or you can do us a solid and like our page on Facebook, or share this on social media. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.