BY DAN

This was domination in everything but the final scoreboard.

The Canberra Raiders ruined the vaunted Cowboys middle in their 26-12 victory. Turned them to mush. Turned them into hungover dads forced into playing tips with their kids, lurching and retching around the park, desperate to find a way to control the middle. It should have resulted in more points. But some bizarre bunker decisions, Ethan Sanders’ wayward kicking boot, and lack of discipline in the second-half approach, kept the game closer than either side deserved.

The Raiders needed this victory. For their confidence, for proof that the last few weeks of being near, but not there, were just a matter of calibration. The losses of the last two weeks have put them further from the competition than they would like. The Cows came in hot, and not many thought the Raiders would be able to hold back one of the form packs of the competition. Yet again, the league proves we know nothing. Another win for Socrates.

Offered competition, the Raiders middle instead chose command. With the ball they didn’t win through power. Or at least not alone. Rather they utilised an agility, to get in between the defenders, win rucks, passing to force big units to make multiple efforts. In defence, they were aggressive. Willing to push outside-in to make sure North Queensland couldn’t find an advantage.

In attack they all played their part. The entire back five cracked 100 metres, and Savelio Tamale (21 carries for 220m, 89 post contact, 6 tackle busts) and Matt Timoko (15 for 163m, 75 post contact, 3 tackle busts and a line break) were both instrumental in laying a platform nearly every set. Off the back of this the big middles thrived. Joe Tapine (16 for 172m, 64 post contact, 5 tackle busts), Corey Horsburgh (18 for 165m, 58 post contact) were the stars, but everyone contributed, and all used similar strategies of late footwork to get between the behemoths and earn quick rucks.

It’s an old-fashioned game-plan when faced with a big middle. Win a ruck and make them get back and make another tackle. Running from the ruck was extremely effective. Tommy Starling had 130m on the ground, and Owen Pattie had a break from nine. One Raiders’ try came from Daine Laurie running inside Jason Taumalolo and outside Matt Lodge, using some quick feet from first receiver to just run through the defence and set up Starling’s try. Ethan Strange’s try came from getting the ball at first on a quick ruck and just burning back in behind the ruck because he’s a man and he’s unstoppable.

Most of the Raiders best movements started with finding this advantage in a tackle and then making the most of it. The Weekes ricochet started with strong Tamale run which earned a quick ruck. Starling got a free run off the back of that, scheming between retreating defenders. This drew the defence in and Ethan Strange could loop a pass to Xavier Savage to take 25 metres for free, and suddenly it was on. The Laurie try, on the next set, started with back-to-back runs from Tapine and Horsburgh that required multiple middles to bring down.

The young Canberra spine and backs had plenty of fun off the back of it. Kris’ early try was a perfect interconnection between Laurie, operating as a connector at first receiver, and Sanders and Strange. When the star five-eighth caught the ball he seemed to have all the time he wanted, first to spot the hole, secondly to move into it with a sudden change of pace, and third to lay the ball up for Kris. Sanders looping pass to Savage for the Raiders’ last try of the game was a beautiful moment of recognition and execution.

This is not some brilliant scheming. At times the Raiders got too carried away with the fun they were having, and played too sideways when they needed to straighten. On other occasions their shifts were so angled that no defender was forced to make a decision until a centre, or Kaeo Weekes was forced to straighten out of lack of space.

They also dropped a lot of ball in good positions as the game wore on. Smithies, Strange, Young, and Savage all made errors they shouldn’t have. There’s still work to do here, and they won’t always win the middle so comprehensively. But as a work in progress it’s continually good to see them generate so many opportunities.

It was equally pleasing to see this defence put the clamps on Scott Drinkwater so clampingly. He’s given better sides more difficult times, but Canberra controlled him in two ways. Firstly their middle did not quit in defence. The Raiders worked hard to win contact and reduce the chances he had to run. They remained aggresive throughout, and their ability to fill in to the backrow spot when Young or Hosking had to make an extra effort was pleasing. The centres and wingers too were extremely effective at identifying Drinkwater as the ‘out-the-back’ man in defence, and jumping him as he got the ball. Timoko and Tamale should be hailed for this.

It was the most structurally sound the defence has felt all year. North Queensland had missed thirty tackles before Canberra missed one. Daine Laurie only got trampled into a line-break once by Jason Taumalolo. Shit, Taumalolo looked positively mortal after season in which he’s looked god-like. While every Raiders fan looked at the score of 22-6 with twenty minutes to go and thought ‘we need to score next’, it felt less true in this game than others. The Cows had plenty of possession, and outside of Sanders failing to account for Heilum Luki, they rarely looked stressed.

Is it something to build on? If they remember what worked in that game it is. Getting people back over the coming weeks might also help. They need troops in the middle, because playing between the flags was how they won this game, and it’s how they’ve looked their best this season.

The young players grow with every game. Ethan Strange is such a gift that I’m close to going full Champ Kind on him vis a vis his musk. Ethan Sanders showed such equanimity, the ice to Strange’s fire, as the game wore on. He looked calm, collected and assured, even though his goal-kicking must have frustrated him. And the fact that no Raider seemed to get frustrated with an array of refereeing decisions best described as misguided was such a difference from other games.

I’m starting to think that the Raiders get amnesia after every season. Between the years nothing is remembered, but it does linger in the strands of energy that connect them. On occasion this season a glimpse of the best of them comes firing back, and we see it all that is possible in glorious sunlight. For a game like this we remember what was, what is, and what could be. It disappears just as quickly, and we return to fighting with ourselves.

One day it will click together, and remain, performances building into each other, wins piling on wins. Heaven and sunshine and Prince playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps. This could be one nice day, or it could be the start of something. We’ll only know that truth in retrospect. But for now the Raiders put it together, and showed that domination was possible.

Everywhere but the scoreboard.

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