Raiders - contenders for wooden spoon

Yes I do concede that the injuries are a major factor in the Raiders poor performance. But its a risk they took in recruiting veteran players.

What worries me more is the Raiders not giving enough 1st grade opportunities to young players like Terry Campese and to a lesster extent Todd Carney. Don’t be surprised if they get poached by another side – probably the Rooters.

Well they knowingly chose to recruit elderly players in the off season.

Did it ever occur to you guys that the raiders fading this year is due to an obsolutely disasterous injury run. we have 12 players out at the moment and the count has been higher than that, at stages throughout the season. it is a surprise to see them 9th when their total injury count so far is up to 93 weeks worht or injuries . . much more than any other club in the competition and i respect them 100% for their efforts this year despite the attrocious injury toll. this is never mentioned and the match is always put down to a bad performance by the raiders when really they are superceeding thier expectations by even being close. the game ont he weekend against the bulldogs for example; playing iwth a 1 man bench to be within 18 points of a revitalised bulldogs outfit is a good effort, and to find we lost ANOTHER player from that game is simply astounding.

Actually, 8,600 sounds about right. The eastern stands (up the top) were quite full. I think alot of people with Inner Bowl tickets decided to takeup spare seats at the top.

The cameras don’t pickup the people up there very well, and they film from the Mal Meninga side so you don’t see people in these stands.

What really annoyed me about the event (aside from the result of course) was the advertising! Incredible amounts of Fone Zone bombardments, including the worst half time “entertainment” ever imagined. For those fortunate enough to not have witnessed it, I’ll give you a run down.

First, form two teams of two, selected from the crowd by people who SMS’d their name in at the start of the match. Then, each team was given an iMode phone, and would be advised fo a site to visit and obtain information from the site to answer a question. The other team member would be the runner and grab 3 pieces of the Fone Zone logo (9 needed to make it whole) and start putting the puzzle together. Alright, so it starts of “excitingly” with the teams going to a Telstra site to get the NRL score from Friday night. One team did this, gave the answer, and then had to WAIT for the other team to do it before being told the second site to visit (race eh?). I loved the line from the guy using the phone when asked what was happening “I’m waiting for it to connect… Still waiting… Here it is, oh no not quite…”

4 hours of Telstra advertising is just too much for me, next time I’ll just stay home and watch it on the TV.

8000ish is a number often quoted at Manuka Oval, especially when only a couple thousand turn up, this led the commentators to be bewildered and astounded when the fullish ground at the last Manuka game wasn’t much more than 8000.

Sad to see Bruce Stadium doing the same thing…at least the rain meant we didn’t need to paint the grass.

Samuel

So why do the wheels keep falling off mid season?

Superior preparation being eventually overcome by lazier but ultimately more talented sides?

Lincoln Withers was forced to run around with one boot at one stage in the first half. The Raiders support staff didn’t get it back to him. He was forced to defend the tryline with one boot, slipped, and the Broncos scored. Quite rightly he spat the dummy at the Raiders trainers. What a bloody shambles.