Raiders win again, 38-18

Great game, Raiders forwards had to muscle up and they did. Ominous signs for next week against the Rabbitohs who knocked over Manly on the weekend. The run home for the Raiders on paper is a dream, but many of these cellar dwellar teams have a habit of upsetting the finals aspirations of many teams. Althouygh the Raiders crowd was decent, I was honestly expecting more, such an important game between two teams in good form, and a glorius winter day.

Speaking of signs did anyone see the Colin Best one? Classic!

Best sign of the game – although very poorly made and hard to read from where I was…

“74 reasons why we don’t need Carney”

What an awesome game! I’m enjoying having a full back who can take being tackled, something we’ve missed in the last two we’ve had I think. I thought the sign “You can’t finish a knight without a bit of Tongue” was quite pithy as well…

Talking of the Raiders Army I was at the game where Raiders beat the Roosters (pouring rain instead of snow that day – I can really pick them) and they had a sign reading: “Who needs a Big Willy when you’ve got a Great Tongue.” The ground announcer actually drew peoples attention to it.

I watched the game from a corporate box. Not usually how I like to watch the footy (I like to be amongst the ‘real fans’), but you can’t go wrong with free food, free booze, and a good win.

I sit on the same side as the Raiders army but at the other end of the inner bowl, so don’t really see the signs they hold up.

The bloke with “You can’t handle the tongue” has been in good form just about every round, so he’s been there at the very least.

I suppose any increase was commensurate with the crowd numbers. I only commented on the return thing because it didn’t seem to me like they’d been at all absent. Oh well.

Except for the snow round.

Actually, the Raiders army had a big one there last week IIRC.

What I usually see in the stands is a lot of $20 standard flags, plus a range of older, somewhat bigger ones. I count on one hand the number of games with the big’uns or banners (Give em the Tongue; In Todd We Trust).

Yesterday’s effort seemed to me like a marked increase in that sort of stuff.

The return? They’ve been there just about every round. Except for the snow round.

PS. I thought it was awesome to start seeing the return of big banners and monster-sized flags.

Campese told the ref that it was actually the Knights player who threw the first punch. And when did Chalk kick someone? I didn’t see that. I did see a grapple tackle from a knights player, which I wasn’t impressed with. Overall, I thought the refereeing was poor again, but fairly evenly so this time. However, I do think the crowd gets some of their boos wrong.

Nevertheless, there were plenty of errors and penalties conceded all throughout the game. Campo conceded two penalties from kickoffs by launching the ball a bit too hard, and TLL was the one pulled up for a spear tackle. He’ll be on the sidelines next week I think. Both teams need to address their error rate quick smart if they want to be able to put in a good showing in the finals. The Raiders will be in Sydney next weekend to play the Rabbitohs, and they’ve just shown they can do some giant-killing too.

The superfan who lives at the north end of the Meninga stand was in full voice again. It’s good having him there because it highlights the people who are attending for the first time. It’s easy to spot them, they’re the ones who clearly aren’t used to his loud, constant “GO! GO! GO! GET ON IT!” barracking.

It was a beautiful sunny day, we had a decent crowd, we played well and won, and Troy Thompson’s article published in Big League was hilarious as always. Well done all round, Raiders.