BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders 42-6 defeat at the hands of the New Zealand Warriors was a capitulation in trying circumstances. It revealed that any pretence the Raiders could treat 2026 as a continuation of 2025 was just that. There’s still a way of winning that they can employ and succeed – but there are critical weaknesses that must be fixed. There was never going to be an easy path this season. Any illusion of that was waved away like a manna from hell.

A short turnaround and an international trip is hardly the cornerstone of good preparation. Conditions less conducive to their playing style didn’t help, nor did the ongoing fluidity around rules. But their opposition entered with their own problems, and things got worse for them. One team adapted and committed to their game plan, the other team got frustrated and lost their way.

Partly that was because Canberra could never win the game through the middle. It’s an intriguing development in recent years; the Milk are better suited to winning with pace than power. They are no longer the lumbering hit and spin attack of years gone. But the weather made them sitting ducks for the Warriors bigger bodies, and it meant that on both sides of the ball they were chasing control like a parent to a toddler.

In defence that meant they gave away more set restarts. Sometimes you win control through contact, sometimes you win it post contact. Canberra were failing at the former, trying to catch up in the latter, and the ref didn’t play along. It put pressure on the Raiders edge defence, and their kick defusal, and neither was up to snuff. The longer the game went, the more the balance felt on tilt, until the Milk were on their arse, clueless and alone.

Tries came at every point of this chain. Canberra’s middle made errors in contact and in decision making. Jackson Ford scored running hard and straight, Hudson Young not jamming in hard enough on the face ball, and Ata Mariota stuck between jobs like George Costanza, but without the charm. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak scored his first not with an overlap, but outmuscling three Raiders defenders who couldn’t keep their feet, or keep him out.

On the edges Noah Martin and Ethan Strange looked oddly disconnected. More than once it was like they were in completely different defensive lines, no worse than when Tannah Boyd’s grubber went between them for Leka Halisima’s first try. On Halisima’s second they were both on their backs at different levels of the defence as the opposition backrower charged in and around them. More than once Strange shot out of the line to end a play and came up with no one, and it took a notably ever-present covering effort from the rest of the side to fix.

This connection needs to be fixed. That may be done through time, repetitions, and perhaps better playing conditions. Both are too good defenders for it to continue, and both spent more time on their back than *ahem*, suggesting a bit of dry footing could play a big role. Fixing it could unlock something great, because on the other side Ethan Sanders looked assured in defence, again. There’s a side without last season’s Achilles heel on the other side of a little bit of improvement.

But even when they got their muscle in the middle, and the decisions and cohesion right on the edge, they still failed to defuse too many kicks. Savelio Tamale was targeted all game, and will continue to be after he coughed up too many kicks, two of which directly resulted in tries, either immediate or within tackles. Before last game Stick said if they don’t know how to catch by now, they’ll never know. Like Simply Red, I hope he’s wrong.

They faced the same problem of playing into the teeth of big, bad brutes when they had the ball. Once upon a time Canberra would overwhelm a team with weight. These days it’s more nuanced, as they seek to use pace and agility through the middle third rather than raw power. But the ability to be agile was washed away with the rain, and it meant that too much of sets was spent trying to find momentum rather than playing off the back of it.

This was partly the Warriors defence, particularly their Zen and the art of ruck maintenance. Some of it was the limits of Tom Starling’s ability in ruck manipulation. He can run, and he can pass, but making people think he’s about to do one and instead do the other, is not a strength. Jayden Brailey looked effective in his short stint in the game, introducing a small amount of uncertainty to the Warriors’ middle defence. While it may lead one to wish for Owen Pattie’s return, the issue wasn’t necessarily roster make-up, but rather the reluctance to deploy the backup rake for the skills that were needed.

When Canberra did get the ball and some momentum they too often got in their own way. Outside of their only try, where Joey Taps and Ethan Sanders both threw perfectly connected passes before Kaeo Weekes stepped through the line, it looked like the timing was a touch off. In the wet a second feels like a year, and it never quite got moving again.

One try was blown when Seb Kris passed it to Tamale too early. Another when Hudson Young failed to obey the cardinal rule and shift to the opposite side after a break. Canberra simply couldn’t get that connection going across the park. Perhaps they need more from their connecting forwards. Indeed all their best movements in that direction involved Joe Tapine, ballplayer extraordinaire. It’s a lesson they learned in 2021 when Josh Hodgson created himself a new job of ballplaying lock, looping the ball from side to side to connect the split fields. Who will do it in this side?

They looked much better going right. Simi Sasagi and Ethan Strange are forming quite a combination there, and Noah Martin is proving incredibly effective as a chisel hammered into defences to weaken their resolve and offer others the way through. The Raiders only try started with Martin cracking the line, allowing the leftwards movement the space to occur. Huddo’s failure to shift left only came because Simi and Strange put together a scintillating interplay and line break on the right.

This is something to build on, but Canberra couldn’t get the rhythm of utilising it. Sometimes the face ball to Martin was so telegraphed Samuel Morse made the tackle. On others Strange couldn’t find his feet, or a necessary pass. But more often they seemed almost reluctant to head in that direction, more intent on showing that Sanders and Strange could mix and match their positioning around the park, and heading left, and back to the middle third. In the best version of this side they find the balance of using all of these weapons.

In the end Canberra were beaten by the class of Warriors, outworked, outmuscled, outkicked and outthought. They had their excuses. A short turnaround. International travel. They looked like they were playing on ice all game, slipping and sliding across the park like Jamaican bobsledders still yet to find the spirit of their country. But excuses like that weren’t used by their opposition, who was without its two star players, and lost two more starters during the warm-up and early stages of the game. They were simply outplayed, and there’s lessons galore for them to learn if they want to have a serious crack this season.

The Raiders can be better, and will need to be. But it’s too early to worry. This project is not the same as last year, and still in its infancy. The weather was too much of an outlier. Some home cooking, and perhaps a detente with the referees, will go a long way. There is too much good footy, in the work of Sanders, the possibility of the Strange/Martin/Simi edge, and the weaponry that can be deployed in less monsoonal conditions. There is too much talent, too much know-how in this side. There is much music in this little organ and they will work out how to make it sing.

That’s ok; it’s week two. There is still a whole season of football to go. In this game they were beaten, not broken. Problems were exposed; both this week and last, and no longer can they hide behind the glare of victory. Better contact, better edge cohesion. Trust the pace. Find their discipline. If the Raiders learn fast, this loss will be remembered not as the beginning of the end, but when the real test began.

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