It so nearly happened: Canberra nearly got themselves a 13+.
The Raiders had won each of their previous 12 by ten or fewer points, until they met a Bulldogs side who are averaging north of 30 points conceded this season. For a brief moment, the big win was on, but a late Liam Knight consolation pulled the score back to 36-24 at the end.
All Ricky Stuart cares about is the win, of course, and will take them however they come. Having lost Jack Wighton to a hamstring strain yesterday, the Raiders needed to win tough and, as is their wont, did so.
Jordan Rapana, who turned 34 this week, was their best from fullback, but it would be hard to say that this was sparkling stuff from a side that gets it done and little more.
The Raiders are now on 13 wins, which should be the cut off to make the eight this year, but have by far the worst differential and thus will need something from one of their remaining two games, Brisbane at home and Cronulla away.
If they are to do it, Canberra will have to play better than this. They went blow for blow with the Bulldogs, who are languishing right at the bottom and have nothing to play for.
“Let’s be honest and no disrespect, we should be beating Canterbury today,” said Ricky Stuart. “We had our season on the line, we had to show there was a lot more for us in this game than the opposition.
“There was obviously a lot of pressure on these blokes today because I was talking about winning, we knew we needed to win and I was really pleased with how they handled that pressure of needing to win.
“They showed a lot of composure in times of the game where it was tight, we talked about playing the long game all week and they did.”
Cameron Ciraldo’s men have proved no competition at all in recent weeks, copping thrashings off Newcastle, Penrith and the Broncos in the last month, but just as they did with the Wests Tigers two weeks ago, the Raiders made them look a lot better than they are.
It’s a function of their style that every game becomes a dogfight, and there’s no arguing with a side that wins every close game that it is in. But, with greater tests to come, it’s hard to shake the feeling that it won’t be enough.
Canterbury, for their part, showed more heart than they have in recent weeks and were right in the context until the hour mark. Their defence remains highly suspect, however, and will stop them winning anything at all.
“It was heaps better than definitely last week, and probably a few of our performances,” said Cameron Ciraldo.
“Our goal-line defence was really strong, it was much more connected, we were working a lot harder and that’s what we were looking for coming in today.”
Canberra might be the worst team ever to play Finals
There’s a reason that the Raiders have such a terrible differential – they’re not very good. Canberra have made an art form of being 1% better than their opponents, and on days like this, that means being slightly ahead of a dreadful Dogs team that, realistically, everyone else has been battering.
The Bulldogs average over 30 points conceded per game and this might have been the time for the Raiders to improve that differential and make their life a little easier, but instead, th
With 15 to play, they had a full set on the Dogs’ line following an error and on four consecutive tackles, passed two wide of the ruck, hit a lead runner and offered absolutely no threat. On the fifth, Fogarty kicked and Canterbury claimed under no pressure.
Despite Fogarty grabbing another kick try assist, securing his place at the top of that list in the NRL, he shouldn’t have to do it all on his own.
Though Jack Wighton was missing today, that isn’t an excuse for such clueless attacking – they’ve been like this all year.
Luckily for the Raiders, the Dogs will give you endless chances to beat them. On the next set, they failed to kick the ball in their own half and invited Canberra right back in. They’ll do stuff like that.
Eventually, the defence decided to take some time off and allowed Jordan Rapana to score on one of the simple crash lines. Late in the game, they blew it out thanks to horrendous individual tackling on Canterrbury’s goalline.
Suffice to say, anyone good – which will be everyone in the Finals – will not allow this to happen. They won’t give Canberra multiple shots and they won’t be so charitable in allowing simple tries to be scored.
The Raiders may well make the top eight now, but don’t hold out any hope for much longer than a week.
Matt Burton’s tackling needs a lot of work
Canterbury have suffered with their roster all year, constantly chopping and changing to deal with injuries and poor form. They’ve needed their leaders to show up with a very young team, but of that, that really hasn’t been happening.
Matt Burton was the major culprit today, with a raft of poor attempts in defence that left his team exposed.
He knew it himself, too: when Matt Timoko cruised past him to score for the Raiders, the five eighth could be seen beating the ground in frustration at his miss, knowing that it was one that he really, really should be making.
Missed tackles are a fairly noisy start and aren’t really worth much in the wider scheme of things, as they come without context and often don’t reflect the intentions of the defender, which might just be to be a speed bump or blocker rather than tackler.
But in Burton’s case, there is an interesting apples-to-apples comparison to be made. Between Rounds 5 and 14, he never missed more than three in a game, but in every game since, he has been at four or more.
However you rate missed tackles as a metric, Burton’s defence has fallen off a cliff in the last two months. Try causes are also a little unreliable, but the half has been worth two per game all but one of his last seven appearances.
It’s something that requires serious work from Burton, who has it in him to be a good defender given his size and previous record.
