Raiders to smash Sea Birds in soggy Brookvale bash-fest
Fact.
Tad sceptical? Fair enough. Last couple of weeks haven’t been … well, no dancing around it … the last two performances have not been … you know … they haven’t been … you know … good.
There, we’ve said it. Not good. The opposite of good.
Bad. It has been really quite bad.
But! Every week’s a fresh chance to up and roll the bollocks, or something, in this man’s National Rugby League, and wacky results happen all the time.
Consider: a month ago Canberra Raiders put 32 on Wests Tigers who put 32 on Cronulla Sharks who put 40 on Canberra Raiders. Gold Coast Titans should’ve beaten Manly Sea Eagles at home, and the St George Illawarra Dragons did beat them, by many, at Wollongong.
So, Manly can be bad, too. And why not on a soggy Friday night when they’re thinking they should win and also of their weekend on the drink and playing golf, and whatever normal people do.
Sure. It will be quite hard. Chevy Stewart and James Schiller have felt the wrath of Ricki, and all these guys are out, too.
Albert Hopoate’s gone to fullback, Nick Cotric’s on the wing while the captain, Elliott Whitehead, moves back into the starting backrow and nudges Simi Sasagi to 18th man.
Them? Their captain Daly Cherry-Evans played 314 games in the National Rugby League, which apparently gives one carte blanche as a clean-skin to Dangerously Throw an opponent, though Haumole Olakau’atu was sin binned for the same tackle and given two weeks.
At least it means that great thunder-beast won’t be running at our left edge, which has been a tad on the porous side, the Sharks ran through us like Epsom Salts, a famous laxative.
And if you think it gave you the shits, imagine our man Ricky Stuart in NRL game 500, sitting in his plastic watch-box and unable to stop the tries raining like boulders down a slope.
And yet … we remain a show tonight. It’ll take some luck. The forward pack has to stand up and smash everything that moves. The backline hasn’t been much chop on dry surfaces - tonight in the slop, we make it a forwards game. Bash-bash-bash.
Kick long, chase, bash again.
Yes, Tom Trbojevic will take some stopping out wide, or in the middle, or wherever he pops up. Matty Timoko and Whitehead and everyone else must rush and harass the big yin, and … well, just hang on.
As we all must hang on. We’re missing millions of cap quality. And all the injuries, it’s why we’ve gone like busteds last couple of outings. You can’t lose your fullback, halfback and four quality backrowers, and still compete with fit and disciplined Sharks, Broncos, Panthers, Storm.
Sea Eagles? Remain with us on the second-line of betting, and fighting it out for fifth. We’ll have to be fully fit. But everyone does, except Penrith who are like Meccano, that old Lego-style stuff.
We’ll be sweet. We’ve beaten Newcastle Knights and Parramatta Eels, and competed hard against New Zealand Warriors when they were flying on their home patch.
Yes, we’re in a lull. Hard to see our little squadron of backline kiddies running over Manly’s marauders.
But it’s a long season. We’re in round nine of 27, we’ve run five furlongs of the 3200m Melbourne Cup. And, as Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) says in the hit film of 1994, Pulp Fiction, Go back in there, chill them [fellows] out and wait for the Wolf who should be arriving directly.
Elliott Whitehead is not the wolf, messiah or naughty boy. But we’ll tip us to win - Raiders 14 defeat Sea Eagles 10. Because why not? We hold the ball. They drop it. We fall on a couple of bombs and Papa thunders under the posts. Again - it can happen. Upsets happen. They have happened.
There’ll also be a half-time or even full-time draw, you could get maybe $9 about that if you were of a mind.
So, again, we hang in, we win the ones we should and we sneak off with the odd one we shouldn’t, and league media, traditional, social and anti-social, declares it the latest Upset of The Year, there have been 11.
And it starts tonight at the old concrete rum-jungle known to one and all in these parts as ‘Brookie’ like we once knew GIO as ‘Bruce’, like he was our mate. Should be more of it, I feel, and less naming stadiums after the latest bookie, financial planner or dental franchise, fancy calling a footy stadium fucking 1800-Smiles Stadium or what have you, these people should be buried in pits and tortured with fire ants.
So - go Toyota Forklifts Canberra Raiders at 4 Pines Park against PointsBet Manly Sea Eagles.
And, of course, up The Milk.
Very prescient, Matt!