BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders are ready.

You want proof? I’ll give you proof. Proof is meeting the best team in the competition on neutral ground and matching them. Proof is finding yourself in a fight that requires perfection and embracing the battle. Proof is grabbing a game that was rocking like an earthquake and being the team that kept your head. This wasn’t a game they snuck or stole or fluked. This was a brutal battle between two teams that clearly do not get along. Canberra fought the Melbourne Storm on equal footing and were the better team. 20-18 was the final margin.

The game started poorly for the Raiders. Corey Horsburgh first tackle drop didn’t lead to points, but it was indicative of the margins that Canberra had to aim up to. They were then pushed by an attack that used the sheer pace of their back three to torment them. Ryan Papenhuyzen was hunting isolated middles like a heat-seeking missile. Sua Fa’alogo was taking any space offered and leaving defenders chasing ghosts. Cam Munster was looking for match-ups to run at. Even Bronson Garlick was taking metres when they were offered. The Storm were looking fast, stretching the defence with readiness, making one-on-one defensive efforts more common, and harder to solve.

Melbourne would take any quick ruck and pounce with exactness. Stretch the defence in once direction just to get a one-on-one in the middle of the field. Two tries resulted from similar moments, both utilising this ability to get fast players running at big men in space. Fa’alogo stepped inside Joe Tapine, and outside Corey Horsburgh, and went sixty metres. The next tackle the Storm’s cross kick resulted in a try. Later Savelio Tamale just gave him a bit of space to his outside and it was 10-0.

Canberra weren’t necessarily playing poorly but it almost seemed like they were being shown an expectation about the standard they needed to be up to. This wasn’t going to be a game they could idle in and out of. It wasn’t even mistakes that were the problem. It was hints of mistakes. It was the slight imperfections that will exist in any match, being stretched and examined like a doctor looking for a problem. Kaeo Weekes gave up a 40/20 not for being out of position, but for not being in position enough for Jahrome Hughes. Owen Pattie went for his own but the line and bounce became a seven tackle set. So often Canberra shifted on the last and the kick went straight to Papenhuyzen, or dead.

When you come at the king you best not miss. No better was that demonstrated than on the Storm’s last try. Hudson Young got drawn into the middle to stop a shift in a red zone set. On the next play the Storm went to exactly where he should have been. A legs tackle from Kris didn’t have over the top cover from Young, and the consequential offload became a try.

By the time that happened though the Raiders had wrestled their way into the battle. Instrumental in this was a middle that was up for the challenge. They were fast and varied in their work, using angles, late footwork and power to start winning rucks. Joe Tapine made forty something tackles in this game, and couple with 150 plus metres of football in which he somehow only touched the Lang Park turf once. Hudson Young (165m) was again quiet in highlights but heavy in workload.

But the game changed, or leveled-out, when Papa, Ata Mariota and Zac Hosking came on in relief. Ata’s footwork around the edge of the ruck was profitable. Hosking’s pace through the middle third tormented the Storm. They inter-played and interchanged. It’s such a step-change for Canberra. In previous years it was Papa/Taps or bust. There are so many people contributing now, so many options, that even when things are not working, the Raiders just chuck on another look and do the same song with a different beat.

Sav Tamale should also be mentioned. Near 200m of the toughest yards you’ll earn. A try, brutally disposing of Fa’alogo like dirt off his shoulder, barely celebrating and just saluting the crowd because he was just doing his duty. Before the season the question was the talent of Tamale or the workload of Hopoate. Why not both? (cue the music!). The rest of the back five all cracked 100, and we should never take for granted what Matt Timoko does for this side. Forget throwing Grant Anderson to the gorund to score Canberra’s second. We should celebrate his willingness, and ability, to take the dirtiest carries without complaint.

Behind this Jamal Fogary had a good game on the ground. So much is made of his boot, but in this game he did his work with creative half’s play. Canberra’s first try started with his excellent dig into the line, giving Ethan Strange the time and space to toy with Fa’alogo. It was his engagement of the line that allowed Matt Nicholson to hit the line with only one defender on him, and find Weeks inside for the offload and the game saving try.

He routinely put players into space on the last, or second-rowers into half holes, and was a Strange pickup away from creating another try just before half time. Canberra got to attacking shapes so much more easily that in the past. Their first two tries came on second tackle shifts. Before this season an attacking shift needed to be notarised and filled out in triplicate before they let it out. Now they’re taking a settler and getting moving. Not always successfully but always with intent and clarity. Fogarty is a big part of this.

He was not alone. Ethan Strange didn’t have his best game, but showed good instincts to hold Fa’alogo’s interest long enough to give Tamale a chance to score. Kaeo Weekes played second receiver on the right, and looked far more involved in the attack than any other time this season. He could have straightened the attack more often than he did (but if I was that fast, I would also try to run around pricks) but giving him the opportunity to stretch the defence is something that just adds more options to the attack. His short side instincts are good, and created opportunity for Timoko to take Anderson one-on-one.

And his game-saving try was a thing of beauty. Start with the fact it was a smartly worked movement, and clearly planned between that edge unit. Add to that it was a interchange conducted in torrential rain. The audacity to chip Ryan fucking Papenhuyzen and know that you’re going to beat him to the ball is one thing. To do it in the rain, with the game on the line, picking that sucker up at pace, was astounding. The commentators had the temerity to say he got a good bounce. Fuck that. You run as fast as a professional sprinter while chasing an egg shaped ball and make that pick up without face-planting. You make that grounding while a hand smacks at the cake of soap resembling a football. That was blazing virtuosity. That was full-mast brilliance.

So Canberra didn’t win by a fluke. I’ve basically listed the entire team in this review, because they are all contributing. There’s no handbrake. No one card to play. They have options. They have movement and shape. There is beauty in their being, and colour in their football. This isn’t the precision of the Panthers but it’s positive and confident, planned and brutal. Points will come. They’ll find a way. And if they don’t they’ll knock the stuffing out of you and steal your lunch money.

That’s why they’re chasing down these leads. They just need to work out what their opposition is doing and how to stop it, then their game can come to the fore. In this game they upped the point-of-contact in defence, winning the tackle on one side of the field to allow the line-speed to meet Papenhuyzen and Fa’alogo with multiple defenders on the other side. This was supported by courageous scramble and Trent Loeiro’s clown act. Stop the points and the points will come. Sun Tzu couldn’t have done better.

People will say the last try was a miracle but that ignores that for the last sixty minutes Canberra looked more likely to score than their opposition. So many half moments they couldn’t quite land. Joe Tapine not knowing to pin the ears back on swing the ball after Savage’s sideline-break-and-kick ended in his arms. Owen Pattie not being able to catch Zac Hosking’s offload at the end of a brilliant interplay with Ata Mariota with the try line beckoning. Ethan Strange failing to pick up a grubber that hit posts and should have been a meat pie. Canberra left points on the table. Weekes scoring was only what the game deserved. What they deserved. What you deserve.

People will say they can’t keep giving up leads like this. But this lead wasn’t like those leads. This was two teams duking it out and one team happening to be a little better at times. The Raiders hadn’t clocked off to start the game. The Storm didn’t leave early to lose it. The vagaries of football, trends and momentum can lead to things happening in weird order. Besides, if you can turn 14-0 into a win against Melbourne, then you can do it against anyone. All it takes it a little bit of magic.

Here’s the thing. The Canberra Raiders are good. Really good. There’s no hiding behind cutesy eyes and protests of inexperience and tomorrow anymore. No pretense of David throwing a sack of rocks over the shoulder and hoping to slay the Giant. Goliath is dead. Canberra are king. Play the fucking song and please the lord.

There’s expectations and responsibilities now. But there’s also power and practice. Jump into the darkness and embrace the challenge. The Raiders are ready.

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