BY ROB

The NRLW Raiders escaped by the skin of their teeth in their golden point win over the Wests Tigers on Saturday, a week after their record- busting win over the Bulldogs.

Canberra were the dominant side in the first half, thanks to a combination of hard carries from the forwards and even harder carries from the back line, particularly early in sets while they made their way out of their own 40m zone.

Unlike the Dogs, the Tigers had some idea of what constitutes defence, but only after ZT had sent Elise Simpson into space and over the line inside the first two minutes. Simpson still had work to do, but her long stride and low-centre-of-gravity running style meant that each Tigers defender she passed was never anything more than a pair of flailing arms.

ZT struck again ten minutes later, using the same left-hand angled run to dig into the line and then put Jordyn Preston through a neat gap for the Raiders second four-pointer. The improvement from the likes of Saunders and Preston has been immense over these last few games. If they stick around next year it will be increasingly hard for players such as Matua and Pasikala to work their way back into the 17.

At 12-0 it looked like the Raiders were gearing up to give the Tigers a taste of what the Bulldogs got, but Wests persevered, and ten minutes from the break they got into attacking range, shifted left and put fullback Caitlin Turnbull through the line and over to score.

The halftime break should have galvanized the home side, but it was Wests who came out firing, scoring just three minutes after the break. Former Raider Tara Reinke popped an offload just metres from the line and her quick thinking teammate Salma Nour scooped it out of the air and dived over. This moment marked a  turning point, the Raiders perhaps a bit shellshocked by their less-than-excellent situational awareness.

The Tigers were back again just minutes later, courtesy of flaky Raiders defence and penalties. This time their half Faythe Manera put in a deft drop-chip, registered past the Raiders defensive line, got absolutely smashed by Mackenzie Wiki and still managed to get it away. The Tigers got tackled short of the line, but it was just a matter of going right to Turnbull for their third try and the lead of the game.

With just seven minutes left Canberra levelled the scores when Zehara Temara threw an absolute pearler of a cutout straight into Simpson’s breadbasket, who in turn just had to run between two defenders on the line ten metres apart. The ensuing conversion from Zahara veered slightly left, and the game entered golden point.

The Raiders mangled a surefire scoring opportunity in their first set, after Kemp got overexcited in primo territory and offloaded the ball into the ground. The Tigers then flubbed their chance, and the second time round the Raiders weren’t taking any chances. They worked their way to the Tigers ten metre line and Chante fired a pass back to her sister who slotted the winning field goal like she was taking pot shots at training.

The Raiders highlights definitely belonged to Temara and Simpson, but it was the grind from the forwards and a re-energised backline that laid the platform. All five of the backline (barring Waterman on 48) eclipsed 50 Post-contact metres, with Tufuga racking up a whopping 92. Up front Holyman was an absolute workhorse, smashing out 209 metres off 20 carries, with 70 metres in kick-return work and 72 post-contact.

Holyman was ably supported by Preston on the left who churned out 128 metres off 11 carries, with a blistering average play-the-ball speed of 2.92s.

Temara was back at her ball-playing best in her 50th NRLW appearance, and it was her early kick that found Lily Rogan wanting a better set of hands in the in-goal. Temara orchestrated all three of Canberra’s tries, shaping the Steeden so that it became Schrodinger’s ball, Wests defenders unable to determine what path it would take until she executed the pass. I wouldn’t mind another 50 performances like this one for the Green Machine seven.

And so the Raiders get that little bit further from the dreaded spoon. With two rounds left and the Roosters next week they’re unlikely to make finals, but at least we still know they’ve got what it takes to make footy exciting.

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