Viva the Milk! Raiders smash Wahs in sizzling romp in Las Vegas
Two teams, one mighty stadium, and only one outcome, really, as the Raiders ran roughshod over New Zealand Warriors in game one of National Rugby League season 2025.
The People! Good day to you and good luck.
Just back from the super-fine if stupid-expensive city of Las Vegas following a 14-night sports-and-booze-a-palooza, and can safely say it’s very good to be back in our cracking country, particularly as our Green Machine now sits ascendant, top of the ladder, two games into round one.
Go us.
Vegas? Busy. All the hotels are casinos, and there’s no indication of “normal” time, people drink beer and punt on the slot machines and smoke cigarettes largely wherever they like, doesn’t matter if it’s 8am on a Tuesday or midnight Friday, it’s constant ka-joong, ka-joong, ka-joong, as the helicopter pilot (Bruce Spence) said in George Miller’s post-apocalyptic master piece Mad Max II that I saw in 1981 when I was 11 with my little brother who was nine at the Civic Cinema, we should not have been allowed in, it was rated-R, and when the Feral Kid’s boomerang thocked into the gay bikie’s head, we almost ran out.
Regardless, had a cracking time in Vegas, there were Milk people all over the shop, and so many Wahs and Wigan types, and lesser numbers of Sharks and Panther people. But pretty cool being there, especially watching so many games from a suite with free-pour spirits and a donut station, and food that just kept coming across the five-hour window of our food-and-booze package.
They do several things wrong in America, the tipping thing is ridiculous, for one. And you shouldn’t be able to buy a machine gun. And they’ve elected one of the greediest fuckwits in the history of democracy.
But free-flow spirits and self-serve glazed donuts and ever-replenishing taco surprise stations, well - we can learn from these people.
The game? Out-freakin-standing. Five minutes in I said to a mate, They’ve got this. They’re better. The intensity was on, the defence was starch, and staunch, and … stiff, I dunno. They just looked harder, faster and more likely.
Of course, when we were up by three tries and 16-nil I turned to that same mate, and said, This is where the fades happen, three tries up.
Sure enough, two knock-ons and a penalty later, and the Warriors had enough possession in the Bad Lands for Kurt Capewell to cross. And to half-time we went, still confident but … y’know.
But it was all good. For it was all Green Machine.
Seb Kris stretched out, Matt Timoko had one disallowed and one not disallowed, and didn’t he look fast and good and strong, we can forget he played injured last year.
And otherwise we just bashed ‘em up the rest of the game, and even with Joe Tapine in the bin for a shoulder charge, there followed but one late try to the admittedly ordinary Wahs of the East.
Sure, they were missing their spirit animal, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, and ran out several anonymous young tykes. But sheesh – they were a bit shit, as the Raiders fans mixed with Wigan ones in the southern bay reminded them long and often.
But stuff that – we bashed ‘em, they were never in it, and that can only breed confidence, particularly in defence, that stuff’s like pollen, it gets in your pores. And when you’re revelling in keeping teams from crossing your stripe it can flow into everything else. And a comprehensive 30-8 win is the result.
Now, with Tapine out for two weeks, of course we should not get ahead of ourselves. But our early-doors draw is tough and tasty. And we can take plenty from it, including the scalps of Queensland’s finest.
First up, Broncos in Canberra on a Saturday night. No Joey Taps, no X-Man Xavier Savage – look, it’s not ideal. But with nothing else on, you’d think they could get 20,000 to GIO, and roar the underdogs home on the back of Jamal Fogarty’s mighty death-boot. Telling you: we defend as hard as we did against the Wahs, that game’s $1.90 the field.
Eight-day turnaround later, Sea Eagles at Brookvale on a Sunday evening, the same place we beat up on them in the wet last year. And sure, no Taps, again, but no worries – Manly have a tough enough pack and some hot runners in the backs, and Daly Cherry-Evans is channelling Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) in the hit film of 2008, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
But I like us anyway. We can hold them out. We can score more points. Fact. Believe it.
Cowboys in Townsville? Sure! Tough enough. But Ricky Stuart will have them revved up and angry about all the travel - the bastards don’t respect us! - and looking to exorcise the ghosts of last year’s shellacking. The Cows are good. We can still beat ‘em. It’s fact.
Then it’s back home for the Sharks on a Thursday, a nine-day turnaround for the Eels in Darwin, and an eight-day turnaround before Titans on the Goldie.
Stuff the travel, Sticky - look at all the time off to play golf.
Then: Dolphins at home, Storm in the last game of Magic Round in Brisbane, and the Dogs on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm in Canberra.
Which makes 10 games. And I like us for six of them at least, particularly as we’re one-and-oh. Six in 10, for mine, is par. Five wins in ten, it’s okay. Seven wins would be very good. Eight would be outstanding. And nine or 10, well … you could get on with me were I a maker of sports book.
So, I like us to win more than we lose after 10 rounds. Sure, it’s not the Eels in 2001, but who is? It’s the same for everyone in this league. Even the Panthers go in each week thinking they might lose, as they did against us late last year, and as we did against Wests Tigers, the same mob of babies who flogged the Sharks 36-6 who flogged us 36-22. And the Sharks still ran fourth.
I rate us … just below the Sharks, but on par or better with everyone else bar the Panthers who are in the middle of the Cleary Dynasty.
But see how we go, right? Certainly enough time to find out.
In the meantime … Viva The Milk!