Raiders Review: Consistent Pain

The Canberra Raiders finals chances ended in frustrating style in their 32-24 loss to the Newcastle Knights. A mix of good footy, ineptitude and comical fortune combined to bring them down. In a year where they’ve been good but never enough, this was a fitting end. They have lessons to learn but one should be emblazoned on their brain: there’s no point in being good sometimes.

It was an interesting clash of styles. The Knights have made a name for themselves by attacking from their own half. Against Canberra’s feeble edge defence it always felt like a problem. The Raiders tried to reduce the risk for their edges by being aggressive and physical through the middle of their defence.

It worked for so much of the game. Except when it didn’t. Sets would go by with the Knights kicking from their own 30 or 40, and the Raiders pressing back the other way. But all it took was a little bit of space and Canberra’s edges were in hell.

In a sense there was little that could be done. On the left neither Matt Timoko or Jed Stuart was fast enough to compete with the pace of Kalyn Ponga or Dom Young. If Ponga or another playmaker got wide of Ethan Strange, it meant that Young would have half a step of lateral room, and Jed was fucked. Mokes was also fucked, but in a way that felt more torturous, because he was the poor sap that had to chase Young down the sideline while Jed lay on the ground in the backfield.

On the other side of the field Simi Sasagi can’t tackle with his inside shoulder. In this game it meant that anytime Ponga, Fletcher Hunt or Francis Manuleleua took on the line, Sasagi was hitting and hoping, and Ata Mariota, a prop, was being asked to clean up the mess like Hudson Young, or a prime Elliott Whitehead.

The Knights made 103 line breaks as a result. It was one boxer just trying to land haymakers on the jaw while the other was dancing and jabbing. Canberra worked hard to win tackle after tackle. Get into position to take a shot. Canberra had more metres, more post-contact metres, more tackles in the red zone. The Knights didn’t bother, with that nerd shit. They just waited until they could swing. As soon as they didn’t the Raiders were lying on their backs wondering where those clouds came from.

It didn’t help that the Raiders even threw in one for free, allowing a try up the middle (*gasp!) when Franky Manu stepped through Corey Horsburgh’s after-grog-bog of a tackle, limp and lazy and messy. Joe Tapine, covering inside-out couldn’t land the tackle, and the first try resulted. One other try didn’t fit the form, when a good goal-line defensive set became bad because Timoko stuck with a backrower too long and a dead play sprung to life.

But for the most part this was a game where the Raiders tried to earn a win, and just got their pants pulled down by the jocks. It’s a weird feeling. Normally the Milk are the good time party boys. But this Knights team – who will play finals and lose in the first week – are made to exploit weaknesses. And unfortunately, for a host of reasons, the Raiders have made the entire plane out of weaknesses.

The Raiders tried to stay in it. They did their best. They scored four tries, one from an intercept, but generally never looked half as threatening, or direct, as the Knights. They had nearly 30 tackles in the red zone, spent more than a quarter of the game there (per Champion Data), and didn’t come away with enough points.

Their best work was shifting right. Sasagi scored twice there and should have created or scored another. It’s so impressive he’s so effective with only one functional shoulder. One try was that ‘one out from the scrum’ thing they do, only this time it worked (huzzah!). The other was on the end of Kaeo Weekes’ continued threats to run through on that edge. He popped a great pass and Sasagi had little to do but fall over.

That’s also maybe what he should have done on the other try he nearly scored/created, but he chose to pass to Xavier Savage, who’d stopped his run because he thought Sasagi was going to score. He grabbed at the ball instead of catching, and a try was dropped.

That connection between Sasagi and Weekes has been a pleasing part of the latter part of the season and excites for next year. But there was little else Canberra could build. The other try was a simple crash play that occurred because Joe Tapine skittled the defence and they ran a ‘quickie’ (the touch footy play, not the last time you felt alive).

But Canberra couldn’t muster much going left. Ethan Strange caught the ball standing far too much. The Raiders need to find a way to get him catching the ball running straight lines at the defence, with options either side. Mokes never got a red cent in space.

On the odd occasion they got Jed into space it felt like when a forward gets the ball out wide – everyone just jogging across with little or no urgency. His ‘ankle-break’ of Greg Marzhew on the intercept try was as slow as it was funny. They’ve got fancier cars in the garage for some reason.

Canberra did well in the middle but hardly dominated. Tapine was again the Raiders best middle, and Ata Mariota at his best when he was doing middle things. Corey Horsburgh had a rough outing, culminating in a bizarre interjection by the bunker to sin bin him (and not sin bin Dane Gagai for his strike, or send him off for his late spear tackle). But even before that he looked slow, and soft, and got beat fair and square on the Knights’ first try.

It’s notable that Canberra’s best period – the middle forty – occurred when the backup middles were on the field. Josh Papalii had his best stint since returning from injury, and Joe Roddy looked sprightly in his stint, which is a good sign for next year. But they, and the starters, didn’t dominate to the extent they needed to in order to overcome the Knights home-run hitting.

There’s a world in which the outcome of this game is different if the Raiders weren’t so broken. If Young and Martin and Hosking were in their right positions, and if Sav Tamale or Sione Finau or Seb Kris were somehow better than Jed Stuart. Or if the bunker wasn’t objectively insane.

But Newcastle was missing people too, and the bunker is a less a ruling mechanism and more a boggle grid. Shake it up and see what words pop out. You can’t be angry with the fates the gods bestow on you. You just gotta be like my dog Odysseus and find a way home.

The Raiders didn’t, and that means for this year at least it’s a month of extra rest. I’d start that process now. Joey Taps won’t rest because he’s a legend and a leader but we should save his bones for future runs. Simi Sasagi needs surgery as soon as possible. There’s no point risking him now the maths have mathed. There’s plenty of other things they should do now.

But Stick isn’t that guy. He believes in building a culture of winning and excellence and all that stuff. Which is all well and good. I’d prefer he’d done that for this year too. But this game encapsulated a consistent inconsistency at the heart of what the Raiders have built this year. They are very good, sometimes. Aggressive, most tackles. Fast and direct and cohesive in attack, until they’re not.

When you’re coming up against teams like Newcastle that can knock you out in one moment, there’s no plays that can be taken off, no errors that are without cost. The Raiders have lived that truth all year. In this game it determined their fate.

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