Huddo, Taps and battered Sav: How Raiders rent Riff asunder
Confident Canberra Raiders host the ever-excellent Penrith Panthers at GIO Stadium today in the final match of round 10 of this enigmatic National Rugby League.
The People! Another glorious game day to you, this one a belter at headquarters at Bruce where it’ll be 19 degrees, dry and still; no better theatre of dreams from which to dispatch the Riff home to P-Town.
They go alright, however, Penrith, as their competition leading 8-and-one season would indicate, not to mention six years of excellence, five grand finals, four premierships; a dynasty even the salary cap cannot dent. Their system is a killer. Whoever’s up next seems to come cherry ripe.
The Panthers possess a pair of genuine piss-bolters in Casey McLean and the NRL’s leading try-scorer, Thomas Jenkins (16). Brian To’o is harder to tackle than generational poverty. Paul Alamoti’s so good in the centres that Izack Tago’s on the bench.
Nathan Cleary is a weird-arsed obsessive with more kicks than Ronaldinho, Isaah Yeo is equal parts brute lock forward and ball-playing schemer, and Dylan Edwards travels more metres than the Indian Pacific.
And all of that is complemented by a pack full of belters led by chunky man-fridge Moses Leota and backrower Liam Martin who is more Bobcat than man. Clearly these people are the testing material.
But hear this, sports fans: Martin isn’t playing today and nor is robust hooker, Mitch Kenny. And these, our Canberra Raiders, are not without robust competitive types, either.
Exhibit A: Hudson Young. Yes, he’s back, baby, my man: all-action, rough-n-tumble man from Maitland, you’ll get 80 minutes of nark and grunt and hard-running man-action, he’s more competitive than shares in AI. When Huddo’s humming and power-fisting the Steeden into stadium turf, rugby league is a happy place.
Sure, he is but one man. But Simi Sasagi is another all-action man whose robust work on the edges has yielded six linebreaks, four tries, nine offloads and 448 post-contact metres. He even has two intercepts. Go, him.
Another man is Joe Tapine, who will relish the contest of ideas in the middle of GIO Stadium today, he has 16 offloads in nine games, and clearly Tom Starling, Kaeo Weekes and Ethan Strange need to hunt about after him and his great long free arms of freedom.
A man on the improve is the fiery phoenix, Savelio Tamale, whose non-solicited advice to management was that they should drop none other than Savelio Tamale, so lacking was he in confidence.
But his damaging running of late has instilled Tamale with momentum and muscle memory from last year when, before injury, he was second only to Herbie Farnworth for tackle breaks and post-contact metres.
Sure, weird cousin Nathan will be raining bombs from space upon him today. But Tamale only needs one fine catch and a 40-metre bust and local fandom will pump his 21-year-old tyres like oxygen.
Ethan Sanders? Ethan Sanders! The boy Colonel had a blinder last week, by far his best game in green in his baby-career to date. Playing behind a dominant forward pack and against fairly effete opposition in Gold Coast Titans, didn’t hurt. But still - confidence and momentum are genuine Things, and it will be illustrative to see how the 22-year-old fares against the standout best seven in the competition, a man whose poster may have adorned the kid’s bedroom wall if kids still do posters on their walls, my teen boys don’t, I was last their age in 1984.
Regardless, the game, for mine, will be decided by three things:
The halves’ kicking and their team-mates’ chasing;
The vigour, brutality and staunch, none-shall-pass desire of defence;
How many six-agains and penalties the referee (*checks website*, beauty - Ashley Klein) deigns that the rough-house Raiders should concede and thus allow the best team in the competition to go bombs away. Here’s hoping our Ash plays a minor supporting character in today’s theatre rather than a starring role.
I like us still. It’ll take a near-perfect game to beat the bash-merchants from the Riff. Their system is so good a team of their salary cap cast-offs could win the competition.
But, as this National Rugby League has shown, with last year’s grand finalists going like busteds, with a top-eight that sports Knights, Cowboys, Rabbitohs, Warriors and even Wests Tigers, anyone (except the Dragons) can beat anyone.
We beat Penrith today and the score will be 23-16.
Up the Milk.