After a great 2025 Canberra Raiders season, fans can only hope for a return to form. Photo: Jaye Grieshaber.
The Raiders are a hard team to get a handle on this season. They are capable of blowing the opposition apart, only to self-implode minutes later.
The 42-20 loss to the Melbourne Storm provided a perfect example of the Raiders ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ personality.
The first 16 minutes showcased the Raiders at their best. They ran in three unanswered tries and appeared to have returned to their brilliant attacking best to lead 16-nil.
Instead of going on with the dominance created in the first 20 minutes, the Raiders allowed Melbourne to get back into the game in the 21st minute when Storm winger Will Warbrick crossed for the first of his three tries.
Then the floodgates opened.
In the final 20 minutes of the game, the Storm crossed for four unanswered tries, two of which were on the back of penalties.
Missed tackles also proved costly.
Statistics indicated the Raiders missed 58 tackles compared to the Storm’s 39.
Statistics can be interpreted in many ways by coaches and are often open to considerable scrutiny.
Ricky Stuart said as much in the post-match media conference:
“If you look at those stats in regards to missed tackles, they’re always high and a lot of the time they’re incorrect … That’s why we do our own. For example, you can go into a tackle and get bumped off and then go in and make the tackle, then you’ve got one miss and one tackle. That’s why we do our own. It was a fast game. Both teams had a lot of movement of the footy.”
Of greater disappointment to Stuart were the errors and penalties that gifted possession to the Storm.
The loss, the Raiders’ 10th of the season, makes the task of reaching the finals seemingly impossible, with the club now 16th on the ladder.
Stuart had been hoping to record victories against the Storm and the 17th-placed Dragons next weekend in the lead-up to the bye in a fortnight.
It would ensure that there was momentum, with the return after the bye of Papali’i, Sasagi and Nicholson.
That goal will now need to be reassessed following the loss to the Storm.
The Raiders will be looking to move as far away from the bottom of the ladder as possible over the next two months, with nine games left in their season.
This is why Sunday’s game against the Dragons takes on added importance.
The Raiders take on the Dragons at GIO on 28 June. Get your tickets at Ticketek.
Original Article published by Tim Gavel on Region Canberra.
