Same Diff: Famous League Stats Man says History on Raiders side
David Middleton is THE authority for statistics in this greatest game of all rugby league. And he's come up with a ripper for Raiders fans
HISTORY has long been a pointer to how things roll in our present, it says so in many august and important books.
Which is why fans of these our Canberra Raiders can be heartened by NRL season 2007 when North Queensland Cowboys made the top-4 with a for-and-against points differential of, count ‘em, minus 70 points.
That’s right – in the benighted season 2007 when Melbourne Storm won the premiership with a roster built by speedboats, the North Queensland Cowboys won 15 games and lost nine, and ran outright third on 32 points with a points differential 130 points worse than poor old Cronulla who were 60 in the black and ran 11th.
The Cows were a force all year - you have Matt Bowen, you’re gonna win games for fun. It’s just that when they lost - when Bowen and Johnathan Thurston weren’t playing - they lost massive, being lapped by Storm 58-12, Tigers 54-10 and Roosters – who’d lost their first five games and not many thereafter – by a genuine AFL score of 64-30.
These our Canberra Raiders are currently on -55 points and sit a game clear of New Zealand Warriors in fourth spot. I don’t need to remind people but: Beating these people, who are 110 points in the black on for-and-against, is quite important.
Another interesting fact, according to our man Middleton author of the august and important Official Rugby League Annual, is that the lowest ever points differential for a team that’s made the top-8 is minus 170 points.
And who achieved that mark in the year of our Lord Dennis Lillee 2002?
None other than our very own Canberra Raiders, bless them and all who sailed in them.
So there you go.
*
THE Warriors? Dangerous people, if enigmatic.
Last two games they’ve put 46 points on the Eels and 44 on the Sharks. Before that they lost 28-6 to the Rabbitohs in the rain at Mt Smart after flogging the Dragons 48-18 in Wollongong and dominating the Raiders 36-14 in Canberra.
So safe to say there is the proverbial points in ‘em. On a dry track at Mt Smart it could be 44-all. For we’ve got plenty points, too.
And we owe them for putting a dampener on Jarrod Croker’s 300th game pageant.
The Raiders welcome back Josh Papali’i, Pasami Saulo and Corey Horsburgh who’ll partner with Ata Mariota, Emre Guler and Joe Tapine, a significant six-prong Panzer division in the middle.
The slow-speaking stats expert on the excellent Blake and the Pork podcast said the Warriors concede most tries up the middle. As old mate in Dad’s Army would tell you, they don’t like it up ‘em. Taps and Paps are key.
They also won’t like Jack Wighton running hard at the edge with the ball in two hands and Croker and Seb Kris running outside him. They won’t like Matt Timoko going gangbusters on the right, nor Jordan Rapana doing Jordan Rapana.
Them? They’ve got strike all over. They’ve got our Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, more likeable than your Kiwi cousin on a dairy farm. But Jamal Fogarty is going to send Steedens raining upon him like mortars in the night. Night mortars, the worst kind. And Elliot Whitehead will be ncomin’ for Charnze. And the Warriors back-three are in for a bashing like the snakes on The Simpsons.
Shaun Johnson, of course, is key. The bastard’s 33 and getting better. Hudson Young must hunt him and gore him like a pig-dog on a lithe little pig.
Should be a beauty.
Raiders by seven.
*
MEANWHILE an omen and good bet in the sixth at Canberra gee-gees No.4 Emma’s Gift which will go out a $4.40 favourite in the Tab Federal, a benchmark 70 handicap, whatever that is.
Part-owned and bred by Raiders coach Ricky Stuart and my mate Mick Houston, once a mogul at Canberra Motorcycles Centre, now a swinging dick with Canberra Royals RUFC, it’s a last start winner and trained by local whisperer Keith Dryden who is confident of another good showing, which is about as excited as that bastard gets.
A good thing.
Go it.
Up the Milk.