BY DAN

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

The Canberra Raiders season ended in disastrous circumstances, handled comfortably 32-12 by the Cronulla Sharks. The Raiders played to their strengths, but the bright lights of finals football shone a spotlight on their most glaring weaknesses. Their right side defence, the kick diffusal of their back three, and their reliance on Jamal Fogarty’s mercurial talents, were all shown for the mortal wounds they were. Caught between desperation and hopelessness they were unable to bridge the gap to brilliance.

Fifteen minutes from a preliminary final, now reduced to spectators. The hope of redemption will have to wait for another year. The worry coming into the game was that Canberra wouldn’t have the energy to go the whole nine. Losing Ethan Strange, such a unique weapon, only exacerbated the concern. The hope was that the Raiders would be able to do enough. They weren’t able to.

Many will point to the absence of Ethan Strange as a key component here, and it did play a notable role. When they had a weight of possession in the first half they were unable to create any attack, stuck one pass from the ruck, a 2023-24 era Raiders tribute act, without the decency to even chaos some ball. A try did come in this period, Corey Horsburgh barging over in the most Horsburgh fashion possible.

The problem wasn’t the insertion of Simi Sasagi for Ethan Strange. He took his adopted role to heart, and was willing and able to tear into the line when given the opportunity. He wasn’t given many shots at the ball in space, but when he was he ran powerfully, making a line break, scoring a try-that-wasn’t, and proved perfectly adequate despite the impossible task of a same-day promotion to the starting lineup.

But the absence of a comfortable secondary ball player meant that Fogarty felt the weight of expectation, and as we have learned a few times this season, that’s a bad situation for him. The Raiders have shown a predilection to hit their backrowers on face-balls early, and shift it wider late.

They followed the same path in this game, but on the left Fogarty needed to trust Simi and Seb Kris more. Both of them had moments of danger when attacking the line with hard, direct running and a bit of space, and all of Canberra’s attack in the second forty came in these movements. Perhaps the Raiders need to loosen up their game plan earlier. That’s a question for another year.

On the right Kaeo Weekes needed a more direct role, including on occasions being able to get the ball as first receiver and attack the A defender. When the Raiders did start shifting to get him or Matt Timoko into a bit of space late in the game it was tentative, slow, as if they were running it for the first time. If you’re not sure in finals footy you’ll get found out. Canberra fucked around.

In the end Canberra just ended up hitting and hoping to run over someone. Taps, Papa, Horse, all did what they do and did it well. Hudson Young simply refused to lose (192m, 66 post contact, 8 tackle breaks), and is probably sitting in the changerooms as I write this desperate for another run. They could have thrown more offloads earlier, played with more enterprise, sought to chance their hand a bit more. Sometimes you have to be brave to win a game. It wouldn’t have been a departure from how they’ve played this season, but they tried to play patient. It’s worked in the past, but in finals footy you need the ability to peel a defence apart. Fogarty wasn’t capable of that on his own, no matter what he tried.

Partly this is because of their defensive problems. Playing patient in offence requires the knowledge that your defence will keep turning a side around, your kicking game will keep flipping the field, and your effort plays will matter. Well their right side defence, which has been a problem literally all season, went from tear to rupture to cavernous gap with demons emanating from it.

Outside of the Sharks first try, all their attack came attacking the space around Jamal Fogarty. He and Matt Timoko got into so many bad positions you’d expect a politician to apologise for it come Monday. Smart footy people will tell you that you want to avoid ‘triangles’ in the defensive line, gaps created by a player being too high or too low compared to his brethren. Well Fogarty and Timoko created so many triangles in this game you’d have sworn Phil Jackson was calling the plays.

Tries and breaks came regularly down this side, as they have in recent months. Fogarty had 8 missed tackles, the side conceded three line breaks, and four tries were scored down this side. But rather than individual errors, what was more upsetting was individual effort. At 6-6, Nicho Hynes scored a try stepping inside Morgan Smithies into the space where Fogarty was meant to be covering across to. Fogarty never even got to the tackle. At 12-12, after the Raiders had played their best 15 minutes of the game, Billy Burns scored simply by running slowly at Fogarty’s inside shoulder, and that was apparently enough. Hosking’s effort inside-out wasn’t impressive, but Fogarty’s contact was more aligned with a dead game in August than the biggest game of the season.

Canberra’s patient but limited game plan attack was undermined by this defensive weakness, and then compounded by their ongoing difficulty to catch a bomb. The Raiders managed to diffuse fifty percent of the kicks headed in their direction. Like the right-side defence, this was something we’d watched all season with a mixture of hope and trepidation that it would get solved. Two tries came in this game directly from the kick. The field position for the disastrous Burns try came because of a dropped bomb. It’s been a weakness all year, and while wasn’t as game-determining as their defence, it didn’t help.

In the end it wasn’t close but that doesn’t make it any easier. This feels like a wasted opportunity. Canberra had a team to win a competition flatter than a fax printout (the 1990s called, they want their tech back). They were fifteen minutes from a home prelim and their game management, their defence, all came back to bite them at the worst time. Then when given a chance at redemption, and a pathway to the promised land, they weren’t able to take the game with the smarts or the fight that had characterised them this season.

Instead it was hollow. Maybe this was the after-effects of a 95 minute game. Maybe it was the absence of Ethan Strange and his fearlessness. Maybe it was the bright lights of the big games, the play of their opposition or simply a matchup as imperfect as any they could face. But what felt weirder was that after a season in which Canberra never felt like losing, this game they never felt like winning. Instead of knowing, they were hoping, their hearts carved out by Reece Walsh and Ashley Klein last weekend.

While in the bigger picture this season is an unquestioned success, they will now get the joy of being called every synonym for fraud under the sun over the next few months. They’ll have a harder time next year as they ride the bumps of development without Jamal Fogarty. Some improvements will come with personnel change (like Ethan Strange’s likely shift to the right side of the defence).

No thought of tomorrow will make the fact that the Milk took a minor premiership and turned it into such a meek collapse. All we can do is pour the sadness whiskey, put on some Cleo Sol and stay away from sharp objects and social media. All they can do is tend to the wounded and hope the devil of doubt doesn’t get in their ear. Next season will come, but this one deserved better.

Do me a favour and like the page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, or share this on social media because love is true and heaven is a Raiders victory. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.