BY DAN

Canberra have a difficult start to the season. Difficult away games in worse conditions give way to home games against premiership contenders, and even an away trip to Perth. If they’re intent on being a contender, they’ll have ample opportunities to test the thesis over the coming weeks.

Hot on the heels of Friday’s debacle it doesn’t feel like they’re a contender. At least not now. They suffered similar losses last year (notably to Manly). At the time those seemed anomalies, proof of the good things they were doing (their defence against Manly that game was heroic until Corey Horsburgh was binned). This game felt more like the Raiders of the bad years – railing against a wave, trying to outrun their imperfections and failing.

But vibes like this are more determined by the lack of tape we have to the contrary. We only have hints of how Canberra intends to play because of the rain. At some point they’ll play a game on non-monsoonal conditions and we might get an idea what exactly the limits of this team are.

If there’s one thing they’ll need to fix it’s their control of the middle. Some of that is on discipline, and the good thing is that the team knows it’s a problem. Hudson Young told the Canberra Times:

There was just too many penalties, too many errors and when you put yourself under that sort of pressure against good sides they’re always going to capitalise on it. We just need to make sure that we limit our errors and penalties, and when you’re defending too many six-to-goes with the speed of the game at the moment it makes it very hard to stay in it.

It’s true that’s a big part of it, and I’m glad that Huddo in his leadership role is being honest. Being more disciplined, or at least avoiding the ire of referees trying to interpret the mess that Peter V’Landys has created will go a long way to addressing their problems from both the Manly and Warriors games.

Indeed the Manly experience is a useful indicator. Against the Raiders they were given two separate dominant periods on the back of possession and set-restarts. Against the Knights they got two six-agains for the game and looked absolutely bereft of ideas or capability.

Canberra needs to be more disciplined in a game that has made the margin for discipline smaller than my pen collection (I have no pens). Controlling the ruck becomes hard if you are punished for trying. The only way forward is to get more dominant contact in their middle defenders.

Josh Papalii’s return will help that. He gets through as many tackles-per-minute as any of the middle outside of Horsburgh or Morgan Smithies. More importantly, the weight and technique he puts into a tackle makes sure that anyone hit stays that way. In a world where the refs are trying to gin up the ruck speed, contact is the only way to maintain discipline, and the control of the ruck.

So many of their other problems will be solved with this initial improvement – it’s a foundational part of their game. It’ll make their right edge’s job easier in defence. It will make Sav Tamale less pressured by weight of attacking kicks. It will give them better field position to play some attacking footy.

It’s the starting point, not the end. There’s work beyond that but it’s hard to tell when in two games they’ve spent too much time trying to catch the game like it’s one of the BFG’s dreams. A dry track, some better defence and discipline in the ruck and they could land a phizzwizzard. Unfortunately rain is forecast for their upcoming game with the Dogs in Canberra.

And so they enter their next game as they did the previous: with international travel, a short rest, and poor weather to contend with. The team they’re facing will be coming off a long break. They’ll need a better set of solutions than they offered last week. Because if they don’t, and fast, the next few weeks could be a nightmare.

The Sportress is transitioning away from Facebook and Twitter for distribution so sign up to the email below before we disappear from your feed altogether. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.