BY DAN

How do you play poorly and score 40?

Everyone knows good teams find a way even when they’re not at their best. They scrap a four point win against a underdog willing to throw caution aside. Put the W’s together as the season trots is long path and you forget how they happened. All that matters is getting better and meeting the challenge at the end of the year. But playing poorly and winning by 26 and barely breaking out of a canter? That’s a new feeling.

That’s exactly what the Canberra Raiders did in their 44-18 victory over the Newcastle Knights. Dominance on tap, but they were driving tonight so only partook at defined intervals. They smashed them when they wanted to, got bored, went off and made daisy chains at times. Still compiled 44 points with plenty left on the deck. What is this team? What is their potential? Can they play 80 minutes? Do they need to?

To be fair the Knights were terrible. They are such a conceptually limited team. They came into the game with plan to throw all their wrenches at the Raiders. But it’s been so long since they’ve played anything approaching attacking or exciting football that they instead felt more like they were throwing kids toys. All it ended up being was offloads and chip kicks, which, sick, but it’s going to take a little more entrepreneurial spirit to get the juices flowing.

For their part the Milk approached the game with all the energy of a tired parent, woken before the sun, plastic weapons bashing them in the head before they decided they better establish some order, or at least get a coffee. They got metres when they wanted them, tries when they got close. But through the first half seemed almost unable to put together five minutes of sanity. The toast was burning, the eggs were overcooked. The sun was barely up. They just weren’t moving yet.

The three Knights tries that came all were the equivalent of missing the cup pouring the coffee. The first required a handling error, two penalties in a row, and a defensive decision from Ethan Strange that was more ahem than your pants. The third came from a comically slow run-around set play thrown to the opposition in a obvious attempt to be a good host by Jamal Fogarty. In a half where he put two kicks dead, another out on the full, and was so laterally slow in defence that Matt Timoko looked like a kid who really needed to pee waiting for him to cover across, it was the Police Academy 7 of moments.

The second try came from a Morgan Smithies incorrect play the ball, which had come mere moments after an incorrect play the ball by the Knights, and right after Josh Papalii had also failed to play the ball properly but it had been let go on some ‘we may never finish this game if I pull them all up’ from the Ref. That too required a stunning defensive decision from Xavier Savage, who jammed so hard Michael Jackson wrote a song about him, featuring Heavy D. Only it wasn’t necessarily (unlike the song, which rules) and Matt Timoko had a look on his face that of dejection when Dane Gagai’s pass went to an unmarked winger.

These weren’t the only brain-dead moments. Corey Horsbrugh’s charge-down-play-the-ball debacle was the most egregious, and was indicative of a team that wasn’t still fumbling with the clutch/stick combo. After their opening tries both came with a degree of ease, it felt like Canberra didn’t quite have the heart to really stomp their opposition. Instead they idled through the first half, were solid in the second, and that was all it required. It’s not often you’ll be so much better than a side that 44 will come easy. But it did in this game.

The Raiders did it in the usual way. The entire pack got metres with ease. Tom Starling (76m) was the only member of the starting pack who didn’t crack 100m. Shit Joey Tapine (13 for 142, 70 post contact) had more post contract metres than Leo Thompson, Jayden Brailey had metres, and practically the same as two other Knights’ starters.

As the game wore on it looked easier and easier. The last twenty metres the Raiders may as well have been on a training run. They could have scored more. They should have. That they only *just* outran their opposition over the game, had less red-zone tackles than their opposition (again, and scored 44 points) spoke more to how easy it was once they got going. They didn’t need more metres, more tackles. They got into position through their middle, they shifted, and they scored. It was almost matter of fact. You can pick someone who played well, and everyone was solid. But it wasn’t so much that people were good. They were just better.

So many of their tries had a weird underwhelming aspect to them, largely due to the Knights edges’ desperately poor defence. Simi Sasagi scored one by running over Tyson Gamble and Fletcher Hunt (I think) with an ease that shouldn’t be allowed in first grade. Matt Timoko had two in the second half that had a similar feeling. Canberra just punched two passes to their centre with little fan-fare or deception, and let them beat their opposition. Nice if you can do it every week.

Don’t get me wrong, there were moments of fluidity, of sharpness. The first try came from a fast shift on the back of a strong Timoko yardage run. Taps to Fog to Strange to Simi and he hit a half hole, popped a pass to Jed Stuart and the Raiders were away. The third was a excellent last tackle play in which Hudson Young created the extra man by somehow shifting to a short side on the right on the last to be first receiver, Kaeo Weekes scared the hell out of the edge, and an easy catch-pass through the hands was enough for a try.

But for the most part they just didn’t need to take the car out of the garage. The Knights were so accommodating. Noah Martin got off the schneid because they couldn’t clean up a kick. Tom Starling scored after a bit of last tackle chaos led to the Knights preferring to (try and fail to) milk a penalty than make a tackle. That came back on a later Timoko try when the ‘obstructed’ defender actually ran further towards the referee than he did to the attacker strolling into the in-goal.

It was all too easy, and that’s the only worry. Canberra’s lack of intensity matched the ineptness of their opposition. It screamed a team looking for a challenge, a fight, someone able to go with them for a bit. It’s been so long. Even their close games between the first and second byes all felt like oppositions trying to sneak a victory, steal it in the dying moments rather than have the cajones to proudly demand what might be rightly theirs.

The good news for Canberra is they’re now entering a period when they might actually have to get a good night’s sleep and have a coffee before the game. The Dragons to their credit, refuse to lie down. Manly will be a fight. The ‘Riff are back, and lord knows what will be at stake when they play the ‘Phins at the end. The salad days are over, and their green judgement needs to sharpen.

But shit man, if they can do this to football teams, winning shootouts just by turning up at high noon rather than drawing their weapons, there’s so much possibility. So much potential. A man could get used to weekends like this. Breezy nights, easy victories. A football team that can be electric when it wants to. Looking forward to people talking about footy because they look at you with that mix of awe, envy and anger. Is this what it’s like to feel pretty? The only thing to do at a time like this is strut.

Time will tell if it’s been too long between proper competition. At some point in the coming weeks they’ll get a proper wake up call, and it’ll be telling how they respond. But for now they are riding high, and it’s fantastic.

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