BY ROB

The Warriors made the trip to Canberra under-strength, only able to field the minimum 17 players to be classified as a team. What they found waiting for them was a Raiders squad unsympathetic to their personnel woes, bursting with confidence after their round 1 victory over the Dragons.

It didn’t take long for the Milk to land the first blow. At the end of their second set they launched a left-side sweep, Bobbi Law tapping on a Zahara Temara pass to Elise Simpson, who in turn squirmed her way through two defenders to plant the ball.

The Warriors were not ready for the Raiders forwards, who proceeded to eat metres like they were a favourite winter soup (today’s weather was single digit temps reinforced with a 30kph wind). Canberra were marching 60-70 upfield on every set, the Wahs defenders unable to stop the likes of Holyman, Basham, Saunders and Preston.

Minutes later the Raiders were back on the attack, this time going right. Blackwell ran a line which put the defence in two minds, and then threw a cutout ball to Tufuga, who spun a point perfect pass into the hands of Wiki for the Raiders second try.

The Wahs did themselves no favours. If they weren’t getting pumped through the middle they were either conceding penalties to let Canberra teleport upfield, or they were turning the ball over through poor security or handling errors.

The Raiders third try came on the left, Temara throwing a cutout pass straight to Law. Bobbi simply charged the line, the defence unable to halt her momentum.

The visitors had a small victory when they managed to bundle Wiki into touch 20 metres out from the own line, but less than two minutes later they couldn’t keep out a towering Grace Kemp, who simply pivoted in the grip of two tacklers, fended off a third and fell over the line to rack up the Raiders fourth try in the opening twenty minutes.

With nine minutes until the break the Warriors finally got on the board. Having piggybacked on a penalty they set up at the Raiders line, and a quick play-the-ball coupled with a distracting decoy run gave Capri Paekau enough space to dive between befuddled Raiders and score.

If the Wahs had gained any confidence from their try leading into the break it was quickly dashed by Zahara Temara early in the second half. She caught defenders napping in the middle, and by the time they could stop her the Raiders were 10 metres out, sending the ball to the right where Wiki pummeled her way through three Warriors for her second try of the day.

Maarire Pakutepu got sent for 10 in the bin after a grazing hip drop on Gallagher that just caught the heel of the Canberra fullback. The Raiders nearly scored again, thwarted only by a timely intercept by Stacey Waka.

Arguably the best try of the day came with 20 minutes left, when Temara put Jordyn Preston through a gap on the Warriors 40-metre line, the second-rower racing away to plant the ball behind the uprights, giving Gallagher a much easier conversion.

90 seconds later Ikenasio came up with an error, and the ensuing set for Canberra culminated with Leianne Tufuga stepping past sliding defence after Krystal Blackwell left the perfect click-and-collect pass floating in mid-air.

With time running out the Warriors could only play for consolation tries, and they found one when a kick to the right corner was scooped up by Ocean Tierney for their second meat pie of the afternoon.

Chante Temara nabbed herself a four pointer, darting out of dummy-half after her sister had played the ball, burrowing between defenders who clearly had had enough of tackling by this point.

With under a minute to go the Wahs won themselves a scrum 30 metres out from Canberra’s line. Getting the ball out to the right they put on a deft little chip kick over the Raiders, giving Tierney the opportunity to bag her second try.

This was easily one of the Raiders best wins in their still short history. They pummeled the hapless opposition through the middle, running roughshod over defenders who just couldn’t get it together. The Warriors got pinged for slow peels in the ruck three times, which accounted for half of their ruck-based penalties.

Sheridan Gallagher and Krystal Blackwell have revitalised the Raiders spine in ways we couldn’t imagine before today. With kicking duties now shared between ZT and the new FB Temara finds herself unshackled from the role of conductor, free to run and pass at will. With Gallagher taking on the lion’s share of kicking Blackwell too is free to run, and she clearly knows how to get defenders to bite before sending the ball to an unmarked teammate.

There’s still plenty of work to do – the errors need to be reined in, particularly next week against the Roosters. Defensive awareness needs improvement, with the Warriors first try being a prime example of how the Raiders can tighten up their goal-line defence.

With two wins to their name the Raiders have already secured 66% of their 2025 total (a truly terrible vintage). While there’s still a lot of footy to be played it’s very reasonable to think that the Green Machine might partake in a finals campaign for the first time ever. Bring it on.

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