17 August 2008

Raiders win again, 38-18

| johnboy
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Congratulations to the Canberra Raiders on another handsome home win against Newcastle.

38-18 over Newcastle and maybe the Sydney media will start paying attention?

The ABC report is now online.

UPDATED: In the Daily Terrorgraph Matthew Johns is singing the Raider’s praises:

    The Raiders have a great run home now (against Souths, North Queensland and the Bulldogs) and look set to position themselves nicely for the final eight.

    If they can maintain the hunger, they are capable of anything.

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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…

novocastrian12:49 pm 18 Aug 08

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.

If a referee is equally bad for both sides the impact is neutralised. We saw that in yesterday’s game. That means (and I hate to say it) the better team won.

Cameron said :

I meant to say: there were a few moments of poor discipline shown by the Raiders as well. Campo swinging punches over not much, Chalkie kicking someone for no reason, and I couldn’t see who it was but they planted a Knight on their head in a tackle. Stupid acts that gave the Knights free territory and when backed up with the poor defence mentioned by New Yeah, gave them free points as well.

Speaking of free points – the Knights got about 18 of them thanks to that nuffy Ben Cummins, who pinged us for knock-ons that didn’t happen and allowed the Knights to score their final try off a gridiron-worthy forward pass.

Although in fairness to bigred and other Novocastrians, he also failed to pull the Raiders up for a few things.
Refereeing = the worst and least-professional aspect of the NRL, without exception.

I meant to say: there were a few moments of poor discipline shown by the Raiders as well. Campo swinging punches over not much, Chalkie kicking someone for no reason, and I couldn’t see who it was but they planted a Knight on their head in a tackle. Stupid acts that gave the Knights free territory and when backed up with the poor defence mentioned by New Yeah, gave them free points as well.

Must be rectified come finals time.

But Manly (who will make the semis as one of the top sides) v Souths (lucky to win a Canberra club game) was match of the day on Ch9.

I can’t gloat to small children now that Newcastle won. there goes y week

The Raiders defence let in a soft try or two. Deadly players such as Inglis and Folau will give efforts like that short shrift in the finals. The Raiders’ attack was great but defence needs to tighten up a bit.

Still, it was a great day in the sun. I was sitting near a rowdy booner who had plenty of funny calls to bark out to the ref and the Knights.

There were actually Sydney media photogs there – been a long time since we’ve seen them actually at the game themselves.

Good show from the Raiders – the referee was pretty useless for both sides.

Wore my red and blue gear for my annual trip to Canberra Stadium. As usual, but for the spirited knights fans crowd was public service cardigan grey dull. Raiders played OK, Knights were unable to finish anything off but are recovering well from the clean out. Raiders will make the 8, but won’t feature in the long weekend in October.

novocastrian5:00 pm 17 Aug 08

I went (as I did last week). Did I get good value for my $30 – absolutely, even though my team lost. Good effort from the Raiders, more the forwards this week (Joe Picker was announced as man of the match) compared to last week’s massacre of Penrith. Newcastle didn’t have enough possession and didn’t seem to have many options when they did get the ball. Crowd was 12,200 – including plenty of Knights fans – and it does make a difference to the atmosphere and excitement. As usual, the only thing that was NOT good value was the food and drink: the fact that every NRL ground rips you off in the same way doesn’t make it any better. But who can resist the siren call (or smell) of hot chips on a cold day?

I think the ‘Get thee to Bruce Stadium’ crowd must be enlisting operatives. I was asked by the newsagent, club bistro woman, and squeegy man at the lights if I was going to the match. I should have had a note from my mum!

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