BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders beat the Parramatta Eels 50-12 and we are content.

Sometimes you get games like this when everything goes right. It feels so calm, quieter than the excitement of last week. This is a job done. A smile earned. A spring morning. A summer sunset, beer in hand and wind as your companion. A song lilting at you, speaking to your soul and making you shed one of those tears that you save for when you’re the main character.

Canberra went to Darwin with an opportunity and a job to do. And they did it about as perfectly as they could. The power game dominated. The backs had a chance to be creative off the back of it. They only let up for a brief ten minute period, and got their minds on the job pretty much as soon as they conceded a try. If you wanted to ask more from a game then I’m not sure what it would be.

It’s probably a stretch to say the game plan was perfect, but more that Canberra’s style, and commitment to the bit, suited the conditions. They punched their opposition through the middle of the ground, barely more than one pass off the ruck, for much of the game. After 7 minutes they’d already outgained Parra by 150 metres. At half time it was 400. By games end it was it 700. Just power, straight up and down, pouring through the middle every chance they got. They only really got distracted early in the second half but as soon as they got back to what was working dominance returned. On the odd occasion they didn’t win a set, Jamal Fogarty’s boot changed that, the Eels were suddenly working their way off their own goal line again. It would have felt futile.

You might have a favourite, but most in the pack were ascendant. Corey Horsburgh had 216 metres (78 post contact, 3 tackle busts) and was so physically commanding that by the end of the game the Eels were letting him wander left and right across the defensive line, choosing just where he was going to pierce.

Joey Taps (17 for 195m, 78 post contact, 5 tackle busts) scored the Milk’s first try on a crash and set up another with an offload that was so beautiful it retrospectively inspired Meg Washington to write Lazarus Drug. Being so involved in scoring plays is not something you often write about a prop, and almost besides the point. By my count he actually was on the ground at the end of two of his 17 runs, just a Dad casually dragging toddlers along at play time.

Papa (151m), Huddo (146m), Matty Nice (136m) all cracked a 100, and the bench unit was so impressive that they even got an extended spell on either side of the half time break. Ata Mariota was good, Morgan Smithies sonned some fools. Him and Matty Nice seem to run next to each other like six year olds that just discovered they shared a favourite dinosaur. Oh yeah, and the entire back five cracked 100, with Xavier Savage’s 128 the lowest. Yardage never felt so easy.

On the back of it Tommy Starling schemed. Which is not something I have written about Tommy often. We’ve always said he’s a downhill runner. When the pack is this dominant he has nothing but fun. He only had 64 metres which is proof that stats are for nerds because it felt like he could have 15 metres whenever he wanted. He started a bunch of good movements, forced errors in defence, and even created the line break for Ethan Strange that would end with Matty Mokes slicing, dancing, prancing and then pounding his way through the defence on the brink of half time.

Then of course there was the influence of Canberra’s most important creator, Hudson Young. With Corey Horseburgh playing such an outweighted role in the middle, it’s fascinating that Young is now such an important part of the left side attack. He put Seb Kris into a one-on-one that Kris took advantage of. Young scored on the other end of the movement. He was also the fulcrum around which Ethan Strange ran for the last try of the game. He scored another on the back of chaos ball (we always need a little chaos ball) because he was the only person on the field that thought running until the whistle in 29 degrees and 8000 per cent humidity sounded like a vibe. The man is a complete player. Does the fun stuff. Does the dirty work. The only problem is he’s a shoe-in for Origin. I hope Zac Hosking is back in time.

It’s hard to know if he’s so playing well because of Canberra’s playing style puts so much in his hands, or Canberra is winning because of it. We’ve said before the Raiders attack like an arrow – angling in from the edges to a sharp point in the middle. The backrowers have nine tries this season, the wingers have six. Even on big shifts the money ball is usually for Huddo or Kris on the left, punching a straight line against the grain. Using their unique mix of agility and power to simply not fuck about. When they are dominant like this it feels overwhelming. The barbarian hordes hurtling towards their quaking opponents. The vikings descending on a village.

As fun as that is, you still need to find ways for your halves and fullback to get involved. There will be days where they’ll need to make it happen. For those reasons it was good to see Ethan Strange play a bit more of a role in this. He kicked more often, and felt potent running the ball and creating, getting invovled in a variety of ways. His pairing with Starling for the Timoko try was fun. I don’t know who out of him, Huddo and Kris spotted the exhausted Eels before the last Kris try, but his wrap-around behind Young was sick, and the fact he was able to offload while playing ring-a-rosy speaks to the skill he has. As impressive, the Eels also sent the very large man Kitione Kautoga at him all game and he fucking smashed the backrower like the size difference was the opposite.

Kaeo Weekes also had his best game in…multiple groupings of seven days. He bobbled one bomb but held on, and took another under great pressure. He generally looked far more decisive in attack than he has this season. He would have got through the line if not for a desperate Dylan Brown tackle. His kick for Xavier Savage would have been a try if not for the terrible bounce (and I guess it was thanks to the bunker. Weird to be on this side of a penalty try call). It is really fun to see him hang so long behind the ruck, able to jump out to second receiver at the last minute simply because he’s fast as fuck, boi.

It was all thoroughly satisfying, and if 50 points doesn’t sate your appetite then you might need to get on a treadmill. This was a game in which the Raiders showed both discipline and commitment in their game plan, and ingenuity in how they expanded and improvised off the back of it.

It’s not that this game was perfect. Their red zone attack was saved by a successful crash play and a couple of well placed grubbers. They need more precision in that. Their defence wasn’t really tested because of the dominance of the offence, and it did fail a few times. Both involved Simi Sasagi not being able to keep up with his help responsibilities, and notably he got yanked almost immediately after both tries. But all that is nitpicking, or acknowledging things that are already noted and being worked on.

Like Van Morrison’s mum said, there will be days like this. That’s why it’s probably worth not getting too caught up in what was achieved. Yeah they’re building, but the Eels were that bad, the pack that dominant, that I would be wary of thinking this a new norm. It’s like the exact opposite of the Manly game. Everything went right for Canberra. Everything went wrong for Parramatta. Even when things went right they went wrong, like Dean Hawkins somehow having zero 40/20s instead of two, or a defused bomb becoming chaos, and ending in Hudson Young scoring. Or the Raiders actually getting the penalty try call. Or Dylan Brown scoring off the run, immediately refusing to run the ball again, and deciding to spend the last sixty minutes of the game trying to nail a harbour bridge pass to the touch judge.

But fuck man let me live. Pour a glass, stare at your favourite wall, and maybe turn on the replay. Sit with this one a while. Not because it’s more important than the scream that was the Cronulla victory. Not because it’s more than the surprise of Broncos, or the excitement of Vegas. Be Darryl Kerrigan sitting on his back porch with a long neck and a sunset. Life is good, the Raiders went well. This is isn’t proof they’ve have arrived, but a quite acknowledgment of a job well done, a future still building.

Canberra are not finished. This is not a new dawn. They are still being molded into whatever they are. Their opposition was at their nadir and the good guys delivered as promised. As they should have. It was not perfection, but it’s closer to that than they’ve gotten this year. If nothing, they can use this as the blueprint to keep striving.

Hopefully it’s just the start of something beautiful.

Do me a favour and like the page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, or share this on social media and I’ll tell you why solidarity is all you need. 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 Getty.