BY DAN

Losing is not good. Let’s start with that.

Any chat you’re seeing about this being a loss that needed to happen is oversimplifying a learning process. Canberra need to improve to win the premiership. They needed to do that before and after losing to the Dragons. The things they needed to fix are myriad and not specifically affected by what happened in Wollongong on Saturday night. Winning would have been better because their position in the ladder would have been stronger. Losing makes that slightly more precarious, though obviously still strong. In short, losing is worse than winning.

So maybe claiming losses we had to have feels a tad reductive. Would I be kicking stones if the Raiders had won on Saturday night? No. I doubt any of us would. Riding the wave of imperfect wins was always fun, even if it did feel like each step forward was going to set off a booby trap (shouts to the old school Prince of Persia fans out there). But the hope had always been the Milk were aware that work needed to be done so would be doing it anyway. Losing your way in a hurricane doesn’t make you any more prone to self reflection than getting home safely.

Perhaps less so. If Canberra were focused on winning above improving, then that will only become doubly so now. Before they had the earned privilege of working towards a premiership without having to worry about results. Now the situation is a little more delicate, the risk becomes focusing on immediate results rather than the end goal. Week by week is all well and good, but when you’re playing for the throne you’ve got to be a step ahead.

The hope of course is that honest conversations are had. Canberra weren’t so far from their best against the Dragons. It was *just* frustratingly out of reach. The result a useful reminder that 80 per cent of their best will probably beat most teams this year, but 60 per cent won’t get it done. As things went to shit against the Dragons they kept looking for a short cut to the front of the line. Losing is a good reminder that there are not shortcuts when the Provolone is at stake.

The fixes are easy. Completing would be a good start. For a team that led the competition in completions coming into the round, it was stark outlier to watch them drop so much ball. Kick smarter, don’t give away so many penalties. That would also help. Basic shit. Jamal Fogarty will never kick that poorly again, nor play so timidly.

Another thing that will help is more normal rotations. It was curious to see Stick not use his bench early in the game, and then rely on it for so long as the game became cooked in the second half. It made me think he was wanting to test out the fringes in the fire of a competitive game. Owen Pattie got more minutes and only needs to learn patience. Morgan Smithies is a defensive lineman, able to stop the run with the best of them but less threatening if he actually picks the rock up. Pairing him with Zac Hosking and some ruck speed is critical.

But more important than any one thing, doing all of them for a full game is the ticket to paradise. The ferocity, the pace, the sharp angles from backrowers and centres in contrast to the smaller adjustments made by forwards tap dancing their way into advantageous rucks. The structured shape, movements and excitement that comes from getting the Milk’s excellent edge runners a little space. These are the things that make this side great, and will come back with surer footing. Getting back to doing them for 80 minutes shouldn’t be a battle, but it’s been a hot minute since we’ve seen it.

If this feels like a lot of thought for one loss I can only ask for your forgiveness. The pain of years makes anything good feel precarious, happiness balancing on the tip of the penis owl like Daniel-San has made a trip up Belconnen Way. Thankfully the short turn-around to Friday’s game with Manly gives us all less time to get full Gnarls Barkley/Beyonce/Seal/Fine Young Cannibals/Prince/Queen/Patsy Cline (pick your genre/generation as appropriate, I’ll roll with this).

The Sea-Eagles lost on the weekend too, but that will only give imbue them with the same desperation that the Dragons showed. That it’s against one of the few teams that have beaten them this year, and a traditional bogey team, will give a good indication of whether the Milk have learned their lessons. Canberra won’t be able to 60 per cent the way to victory. Finding their best more consistently seems a trite suggestion. Sure, why not be awesome all the time? But it will be necessary to find a way to do that, and a little more come September, and the weekend’s loss only makes that more clear.

Subscribe below because Facebook and Twitter feel like they’re on borrowed time. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.