Was fully expecting to lose yesterday, but the closeness of the result made it agonising. Controversies aside, it was a fantastic game. The Roosters were the better team and showed us the required standard to become premiers. Congrats to the Roosters and their fans for achieving what's been considered near-impossible in the salary cap era - both clinically defensive and forward thinking in attack, a style I hope other teams are influenced by in the future to counter cynical playing styles and make the game the spectacle it deserves to be.
Hopefully we take these lessons learned in the finals series into next year and build on this year's performance. Its certainly no guarantee that we'll be as lucky as this year, but I'm cautiously optimistic that Stick and the coaching staff have finally instituted a winning culture in the team. Bar catastrophic injuries, there won't be an excuse for the typical regressions we've seen in follow-up years at Canberra. Stick's now got his rep players, a killer forward pack, (what will hopefully be) a more active halves pairing, and a squad of players with competitive grand final experience. Next year will primarily depend on attitude and hunger.
It was an amazing lead-in week; the work week was close to a write-off, the Raiders being the focus of the RL world was surreal, having your family and mates call you all through the week with best wishes, the banter here was straight up idiotic and hilarious. It was all topped at my first grand final where I was completely floored by the atmosphere provided by both sets of fans. Regardless of the numbers of bandwagoners and neutrals playing dress-ups, it really was a special day for the week-in week-out fans of either sides. Trotting out the 80's/90's legends drove the fans nuts and took me back to watching the 94 finals where I jumped over to the Raiders to be a little shit (would not advise this long term investment in retrospect). The deafening viking claps until the webbings on your fingers bruised. Jack's run to the line right in front of all of us, only to have Tedesco return serve at the end. It was exhausting.
I'll never forget the experience, and am thankful that a work trip was delayed so that the wife and I could attend. I sincerely hope that fans here of the scrub teams (you know who you are) have some degree of success in the near future, just for the experience of getting to the big dance (blech), because days like yesterday mean the world to those of us who stick by the teams that are perpetually losers and wont be taken for granted.
As a side-note, One Republic should have been replaced with Ryan James trying to remember his lines for 20 minutes.
