BY DAN

The Raiders put a shift on down the right-hand side. It’s one of many in the second half, the Milk playing more adventurously as they chase the game. Laurie. Sanders. Strange. Mokes. Stuart. It’s exactly the kind of fluid footy we’d been hoping to see. The Raiders are moving on the advantage, charging for the line. As the cover comes across Stuart leaps for the line. He drops the ball going for a near impossible grounding as he is pushed out of play.

A set later another break follows. Sanders puts Zac Hosking into space on the third tackle. The backrower runs alone in space, desperately searching for someone *fast* to give the ball to. He shimmies and shakes like Josh Hodgson about to grubber for Jordan Rapana. In the end he passes back to his young halfback, who puts a hopeful grubber ill-matched to the situation. It bounces up to be easily collected by the opposition.

Canberra’s 2026 season has felt as frustrating as these movements. At times well crafted, brimming with potential. But unable to execute as needed. A step too slow, a pass adrift, hands six centimetres from where they needed to be for a clean catch.

It’s almost felt like the opposition has been irrelevant. We’ve often made jokes of this Canberra team’s battle with itself, but this season has been different. More consuming. This hasn’t been the narrator beating himself up in a parking lot for the amusement of a braying public. This is the duality of man, the good and evil, the yin and yang, unfiltered chaos permeating through the TV screen to the torment of all of us watching.

This can be fixed, and the solutions are easy to name but difficult to implement. There’s a need for simplicity in what they do; a greater patience and recognition of the moment. Sanders didn’t need to kick in the above play. Stuart could have stepped inside. Sav Tamale made a break earlier in the game, and was so excited to be running free he held the ball like a shopping bag going through contact. A forty-metre break and the advantage instead became a problem. There are also old heads making young errors, looking for shortcuts and big gambles chasing earlier losses.

Recognition of when to push and pull is an experience thing, and something that the Raiders just haven’t mastered yet. It will come with time. Broader handling issues are a matter of patience and discipline. Coach Stuart said as much in his post-game comments, furious that his expected standards hadn’t been met, bluntly saying:

They can book their end of season holidays early if we don’t start fixing our errors…There’s no excuse. We put ourselves in the position to win the game but…if you look at the set before they scored each try we made an error. So you give them field position, you give them more ball, it’s not good enough.

Stuart was at pains to not blame the personnel stretch the Raiders are under, but it’s hard not to see the impact. The Raiders made too many errors, but a big reason they couldn’t defend them was a lack of beef in the middle, and a lack of talent on the edges. Simi Sasagi should be back this week, but that’s all the help they’ll get.

And they may need to find even more solutions. It seems likely one of the four joints of Noah Martin’s that Api Koroisau landed on will keep him out this week, meaning a returning Simi Sasagi may have to play backrow. Joe Roddy seemed fine in defence there – working hard and holding his position well. But he just won’t have the same impact that a Young, a Martin, or a Hosking would have there. The solution may be switching the human Spakfiller of Hosking to the left, Sasagi on to the right edge. We will see.

Ethan Strange could be another absence. His was a rolled ankle, and NRL Physio’s advice was that an injury like that is usually a 1-2 week thing. That he came back on, and that the Raiders (finally) have a long turnaround before the Titans game, may give him enough time to be ready. If he’s not, one would assume Daine Laurie is a straight swap. Chevy Stewart continues to perform in Cup, and would bring similar utility as Laurie to the bench.

Filling out of the back of the bench will be an interesting proposition. Jake Clydsdale and Vena Patuki-Case had quiet games in the Cup side’s second victory of the season. That was more about circumstance than effort or effectiveness. I’m not convinced either’s best interests would be served playing first grade right now. Jordan Uta has also been around the first-grade squad a few times recently. I am less sure of him than Clydsdale.

Canberra may not have a choice. They were battered by a bigger pack on Thursday, and may even lose even more bench options to the starting lineup. Maybe this is how Owen Pattie finally gets a run. A man can dream.

This isn’t a must-win for a competition you could throw a blanket over – as long as that blanket is covered in puke. But it is a must-win for a team that finds it impossible to put 80 minutes of sanity together, let alone of good footy. The Titans are better than you think, and if the Milk cannot find a less agitated way to play footy, they’ll be found wanting.

The mountain is getting higher and harder to climb. 2026 is quickly taking the shape of a frustrating year of development, where players do 90 per cent of the right thing, or 100 per cent of it, 90 per cent of the time. That’s a passing grade for anything but the precision enterprise of professional sport. In the big time it leads to this *stares out the window as Through the Dark by Alexi Murdoch plays*

The fits and starts of learning will bring joy at some point. Maybe it clicks later this year. They’re currently one win out of the eight (and one out of second-last), so the patience needs to apply both the micro and the macro. More likely it’s in the years to come. It hurts more now because last year promised so much, and this year has delivered so little.

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