Knights Have Dangerous Lefties but Might is Right for Canberra Raiders
Newcastle Knights had their best win of the season last weekend, beating Melbourne Storm 26-18 at home. But they're at sweet suburban Bruce today, where 20,000 fans won't be cheering them home
And so to sweet suburban Bruce for a crucial, crunch, banana skin and [insert your sports-speak here] fixture against Newcastle Knights, the 11th-placed desperates who beat Melbourne Storm last week and have a left edge more dangerous than a backyard meth lab.
Maybe not that dangerous. But dangerous, man. Dangerous.
Kayln Ponga is in sterling form and skipping away, ball in two hands, feet like pixies tap-dancing on the head of a pin, something something, feeding sympathetic seed to the beasts Bradman Best and Greg Marzhew, our Matthew Timoko, Elliott Whitehead and Jordan Rapana will need to be watchful and physical as Olivia Newton-John was in her sexy video phase.
The Knights go okay the other way, too: Tyson Gamble and Jackson Hastings, while unfashionable, are smart critters. And they’ll send the Steeden fizzing out to Dane Gagai and Dom Young where dear old Jarrod Croker has another chance to prove it isn’t, um, you know, over.
Love the man. Champion player and better fellow. One of the great Raiders. Fear he’s a turnstile in his dotage.
Prove us wrong, Ornament.
Elsewhere Phoenix Crossland’s a competitor at No.9, Tyson Frizell is still capable of athletic penetration and Adam Elliott has stopping qualities in the mids.
But I still like us. At home, chill and still day, crowd nudging 20,000, say. It’s the reason Knights were great against Storm at home in Newie; you get 20,000 people yelling ‘go!’ at you, you tend to run faster, tackle harder, it is a Thing.
But Newcastle is without Daniel Saifiti this week and they really, really need him. Because our middle men are middle men best practice. And part of the game plan, certainly early, will be to pound their people with a succession of death sets. Pure punishment. The best kind of punishment.
Joe Tapine, Josh Papali’i and Corey Horsburgh will pile-drive up guts with the first three hit-ups, equal parts footwork and brawn. Then Hudson Young, Jack Wighton and Seb Kris will run with hard-boned intensity and skill, and run the Knights, as your teenager might tell you, massive ragged.
Jamal Fogarty?
Fogarty’s value is in game management, kicking the footy downtown or shifting it to someone else as required. He’s had 12 try assists in 2023 (20th in the NRL behind Scott Drinkwater with 22) yet isn’t in the top-50 for linebreak assists in the NRL, a tad unusual for a halfback. (Wighton is the Raiders’ best at 33rd with eight).
Doesn’t matter. For Fogarty’s party trick is his super-smart boot. And he’ll land his mortars on Ponga and Marzhew and Best and Young, and the chasers will smash them like guitars.
I foresee it.
Raiders by 10.
Up The Milk.