BY ROB

Fresh off an emphatic win over a heavily favoured Broncos side the Raiders now hit the road again, this time taking the team bus up to Manly. Round 3 presents itself as a testing point for Canberra – they’ve got two wins in the bank, and the rest of the league is now acutely aware that the Green Machine means business in 2025.

Sunday night is a chance for the Milk to reinforce what they’ve demonstrated across the first two rounds: a bruising attack driven through the middle of the field, and defence strong enough to contain the point-scoring abilities of heavyweight opponents.

Manly will be looking to bounce back from the bath that the Warriors handed them last round, going down 36-16 in their trip across the ditch. If the first two rounds have taught us anything it’s that no-one is safe from an upset, with only the Raiders, Bulldogs, Knights and Bunnies currently unbeaten.

The Silvertails almost certainly view themselves as top-tier aspirants, but to haul themselves up to the same heights as the Storm and Panthers they’re going to have to topple sides like the Raiders, who are currently brimming with confidence.

Round three sees Coach Stuart rejig his line-up to accommodate Zac Hosking’s broken hand (4-6 weeks). Matty Nicholson’s stellar performance against the Broncos sees him elevated to the starting 13 in the second row, with Trey Mooney coming onto the bench. Xavier Savage is back too, which means Albert Hopoate is back with the NSWCup side.

This shift in the forward pack means that Huddo and Nicholson will have to redouble their efforts, given how much yardage and defensive work Hosking covered last week. Simi Sasagi will need to be adaptable too, as Sticky may seek to either spell Nicholson or rotate Smithies in the lock position. The bench was perfectly balanced against the Broncos last week, but this week it’s more aligned with giving Papa and Horse a break before they blow a gasket.

The Manly pack may present more of a challenge for the Raiders than Brisbane did. Where the main objective against the Broncos was containing Haas and Carrigan, against Manly the threat is more evenly spread across the front line. Paseka, Taukeiaho, Olakau’atu and the two Trbojevic brothers should not be underestimated.

Speaking of brothers Trbojevic, the Raiders must restrict Tom Turbo’s access to open space with the ball in hand. Canberra must be ready for DCE finding Turbo on a secondary pass behind line decoys, or they’re going to get holes poked in their edge defence. They did a decent facsimile of this on Reece Walsh.

To neutralize Tommy T one must of course kick away from him, and we’ll all be hoping that Fog has spent the week practicing bombs that travel to the red zone or kicks that head straight to the corner (for his part Fog was honest that quite a few of his kicks went astray against Brisbane).

Another tactic the Raiders are warming to is the last tackle turnover inside the ten. With heavy grubber kicks punished by a 7 tackle set, and drop outs not as valuable as they used to be, Canberra have realised that a high reward play is to turn it over and force the opposition to work it out from their line. While this may seem like an uncreative way to end a set it has two advantages: it negates the chance of the opposition starting from the twenty with seven plays in hand, and it also removes the chances of the Raiders losing the ball off a short dropout, something they struggled with in ’24.

Attack-wise expect more of last week – a blistering onslaught through the middle, with the Green Machine then capitalising on the opposition’s disarray. Canberra are still refining what their idea of a set play is, but where they currently excel is scoring through broken play close to the line (Seb to Papa, Timoko to Starling etc). This type of attack can be particularly hard to defend, given that it cannot be anticipated due to its opportunistic nature.

In Conclusion

Incredibly the Milk still have the odds against them. Given what we’ve seen over the first two weeks I’m confident bookies may be eating humble pie come Monday morning, while we all rewatch the highlights of a third straight win.

Raiders by 10+!

Sign up the mailing list because the algorithm hates the Milk as much as the Sydney press. Also like our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or share this on social media and believe in the future with me. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.