A Tale of Two Twenties - Canberra Raiders Greatest Teams Named. Plus: Milk Kickstarter Sa-mokin.

In February the Raiders will celebrate 40 years in top-level rugby league, and we can recommend a very good book. In the meantime, here's the best players from the first 20 years and the second

Oct 29, 2021

And so! Because it’s T-minus 137 days and (who’s) counting until Round 1 of the 2022 National Rugby League season - and because that will mark some 40 years since the Canberra Raiders played their first game of top-level rugby league - but mainly because it’s fun and we can and people do love a list - behold! The club’s two Best XVIIs, in the opinion of The Milk’s crack team of likely hive-minds from the first 20 seasons (1982-2001) and the second 20 seasons (2002-2021).

Digress at will.

The only selection criteria is that a player must have played within the periods. Thus Ken Nagas’s only game in 2002 - the 52-6 thrashing by Newcastle Knights in which Mark “Boozy” Hughes scored a hat-trick and Andrew Johns converted 8 of nine tries - earns him a wing spot in the second XVII ahead of Nick Cotric.

That’s right, in your best Ray Warren: Con-tro-versy.

And while much is uncontentious - Mal, Stick, the benching of Tongue in Team II - I would bet all of my dollars against a packet of cinnamon donuts that nobody will agree with all the following, particularly I’m tipping the inclusion of Hudson Young, but I like the mad bastard and it’s my list so ya.

Ha.

I actually thought about including Phil Blake because I used to like watching him play but what he brought the Green Machine has been lost in the midst of time, indeed may never have happened.

However! To find out we can recommend a particularly good book which has five (5) days to go until its Kickstarter project wraps up having amassed, at time of writing, $9136 of its $10k to get self-published. It’s smoking, the people. And we are pumped at The Milk HQ.

In the meantime: Read, weep. Your lookout.

Go well.

Go Raiders.

Raiders Best XVII: 1982-2001