BY DAN

With seven minutes to go Corey Horsburgh tore into the line. The Canberra Raiders had just taken a 22-18 lead after Matt Timoko’s intercept became Xavier Savage’s length-of-the-field try. Resolute if chancy defence had held strong against wave after wave of opposition attacking forays. With noting but fatigue in the legs of anyone in green, the big Queenslander hit the defence after about ten metres, and carried them another ten as his legs kept pumping, dragging the Raiders over the forty and out of danger. Forget poetic licence, I know what every single Canberra fan was thinking.

Where has this been?

The run epitomised the story of this game. For weeks this team has flailed and failed their way out of finals contention. With everything to play for they gave nothing. Now with their hope at its lowest, their opposition at their highest, and no sane person giving them a chance, here they were dancing withe devil and making him jealous.

This was a team united in both purpose and action. They moved together in defence. They covered each other’s tracks if errors were made. They poured through the middle, hammers into a brick wall, too stubborn to accept how hard their task was. Their opposition, expecting a gentle welcome and usually able to wear down any opposition with a relentless discipline and direction was instead perturbed at the unyielding menace.

That it worked is both part of this sides’ charm and something worth reflecting on for Coach Stuart. This is what it took to scrape past the Panthers: a defensive effort that would have impressed the boys at Thermopylae, the courage of a thousand blue heelers, and not one but two pieces of opportunistic individual brilliance that led to Xavier Savage tries. There was no sculpted structure in attack, no genius change improved the defence. The 2024 Canberra Raiders built themselves a low ceiling. It takes something inspirational to smash through. This was very much that. They simply refused to accept reality, like deciding gravity didn’t exist. I didn’t know you could do that.

The game plan against the Panthers was exactly as you’d expect. Smash them through the middle, find Brad Schneider in the line when possible, torture them with Jamal Fogarty’s right boot, and use offloads and pace through the middle to create chances to play a bit of footy. By now you’re familiar with this approach and the limitations that can be created by it.

When it did succeed it looked fast, furious and unidirectional. Joey Tapine was inspirational as always. Right now NRL.com says he had 122m on the ground (and five tackle breaks, a try assist, a line-break assist, and thirty five tackles. Mumma there goes that man). If that’s right they were the toughest 122 metres you will see, constantly attracting four and even five defenders any time he held the ball. He started and finished Canberra’s second try, burning into and through the line, dumping an offload that created the break for Jordan Rapana. Two tackles later he did the same, this time at the goal line. Kaeo Weekes only had to fall over the line but he could have gone a thousand metres if he needed to, such was the space Taps created.

Apart from Taps, Huddo (131m, 51 post contact) had yet another important game, doing so much good work through the middle third (he notably took the carry before Joey Taps in the aforementioned Weekes try, dragging the defence closer to the middle with hard running). Xavier Savage (197m, seven tackle breaks, two tries) was also brilliant in yardage, as well as defence, and almost every moment he was involved in the game. His ability to take runs with power and agility in exit sets has become such an important part of Canberra’s game this year. Even his knock on of a kick late in the game was actually a try-saving moment in which he attacked a ball everyone else was watching. If he keeps this up the biggest problem will be who fills in for him come Origin next year. This was all supported by a welcome return Jamal Fogarty’s boot and control of a side that he’d almost observed in recent games.

On the back of this Canberra expect to play a bit of footy, but outside of the Weekes try, they didn’t really get a chance to. So much of the game was coming off their own line, kicking early, and generally playing footy from their own half. There was little in the way of structured attack. I barely remember an attacking shift. Their game winning tries in the second half both started in their own end of the field. One was an intercept, and the other a good read by Weekes to spot a forward at weak-side A after a kick, and Bert Hopoate turning into a ball player, and Seb Kris into a speedster. Add that to Savage’s frankly stunning catch-and-spin into a front slam, and you have three tries built without opportunity or structure. This is the way.

Partly this was driven by the T-1000 they were facing. Particularly through the opening twenty minutes of the second half their opposition relentlessly pushed them back and back into their own line. The Raiders would start their set from their goal line, kick from their 30. The Panthers would start their sets at their 40, end with an attacking kick. It took to near 17 minutes into the second stanza for Canberra to get tackled in the opposition territory. By the end of the game the ‘Riff had still had 68 per cent of the territory.

Partly it was driven by ill-discipline. Luke Summerton’s first try started with a penalty on Danny Levi, and end when he and Morgan Smithies made a mess of basic ruck defence. This was but one of 103 first half penalties (someone check the number) the Raiders gave away. The Milk compounded this with costly if not frequent handling errors. A Dane Laurie try came after an uncharacteristic drop by Tapine, minutes after a handling error from Seb Kris after a imperfect Hudson Young pass had nearly resulted in the almost exact same result.

But while these moments did have an impact Canberra somehow managed to hold the line under persistent pressure. There was improved efforts from most players. Simi Sasgai came on for Elliott Whitehead and had his best defensive effort as a Raider. Ata Mariota routinely found himself defending on edges and being good enough to clean up messes. Xavier Savage made several important decisions to jam in. Hudson Young defended in somewhere between seven and eight different places along the line, just making tackles because he had the energy and no one else did.

More broadly the defence was more coordinated and structurally sound than it has recently. It was pleasing to see decisions being made in unison by outside defenders, even if on occasion they didn’t work out. Dane Laurie scored because a whole left edge had tied in, but the discipline of the unit forced decisions that pushed him to the very edge of the ground. Earlier Kris had pushed him out. When Canberra took the lead with minutes to go it was an intercept on the back end of multiple sets, but for once it didn’t feel like we were waiting for the inevitable. The defence created contest, through for once moving together, and because the defenders were willing to push themselves beyond exhaustion to hold the line.

In that early second half period stuck on their own line they only leaked one try where in recent weeks they’ve been more hospitable than your mum (with those lovely little sandwiches). That try came because Fogarty got rolled defending in the middle, and Whitehead, also covering across, couldn’t cover for the mess it created. Smell was substituted moments later, exhausted, a man standing but without an ounce of energy left to give, one of many willing to push their bodies beyond what any sane person should. It was inspirational. By the end of the game the ‘Riff had still had 68 per cent of the territory. 54 per cent of the ball. They turned the screws. They wielded unholy pressure. They pried at fingernails and sawed off digits and sent them to people’s parents. Canberra just wouldn’t give up.

There’s a risk the wrong lesson is taken. At worst it will just allow Stuart to burrow further into his foxhole and narrow narrative. Some changes worked – like letting Jamal Fogarty go back to being the dominant ball-player, but then everyone told him that. Some didn’t. Weekes was excellent but shifting him to six basically removed him from the attack and limited the impact of the Milk’s smash-and-pop offloading attack, as well as their shifts. But Stick will take the result and run a mile, claiming vindication for his approach rather than recognising that the team succeeded by adopting his persona not his plan. Canberra didn’t win this through some repeatable approach that should see it be a contender next year. They just proved you can outrun your demons. It’s much more sustainable to get rid of them altogether.

That’s a problem for a sober tomorrow though. Tonight we bathe in the waters of victory, the kind that makes grown men cry. Success like this can sustain. Courage that amazes, inspires, and leads, is the kind of stuff that can make you believe anything about the potential of this side; to see them the way Ricky Stuart does, a perfectly crafted engine that just needs to be driven properly. When you can stand up to the biggest bully in the competition, take every swing they have, wipe the blood and keep on scrapping then you have something that can be built on. Hopefully they can make it a part of who they, not just for a day but always.

Do me a favour and like the page on Facebook,  follow me on Twitter, or share this on social media and you can join me in Elysium. What the hell are we doing here? Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.

Feature image courtesy of Keegan Carroll