Could we have played worse and won?

[greeneyed]

I saw Davico beckoning to the crowd after the game like he wanted them in the dressing room too... it would be very cool of him to do it if that is what he meant.

 

[greeneyed]

Campo can kick at least.

 

[sydraider]

Campo can kick at least.

TOTAL AGREEMENT!

 

[sydraider]

Campo at 5/8th will play exactly like Toots does at 5/8th anyway, except without the mongrel toots brings and of course Campo can boot it 6o on the fly. He isnt going to do much for our attack for a while yet.

Isnt a good kicking game paramount to a good attacking game????

If campo can boot 60 on the fly, doesnt that mean 40-20's are a possibility, that sounds like extra attacking spark to me

 

[burley griffin]

I think some of the responses here have been a little drastic. It is only the first game, and both sides looked fairly rusty at times. Overall, i thought it was a pretty good performance, except for the 20 minutes after halftime.

If i was elliot, i would stick with exactly that side, with Drew on the bench instead of Lawrence. I think that is the perfect 3/4 combination, and i think that having croker at 5/8 is the way to go for the moment. I saw a bit of Campo in reserve grade and didn't really set the world alight, but i only saw small snippets in between preparing flags etc. Someone else who was actually watching reserve grade more intently might be able to make a more informed comment though.

 

[thickos]

It was bloody humid at OkiDokey dump today but the SGB had a great time. Huge contingent, Raiders fans everywhere, made plenty of noise.

IMO the game had its pros and cons for us. The major positive was that WE WON! The Dragons had a stack of opportunities in the 2nd half and yet they threw em away - they may claim they should have won but hey a good team takes those opportunities. similarly the first half was AWESOME because of our defensive structure - the boys were switched on and marked their men really well. That fell away a bit in the 2nd half and hence the chances came for the Dragons. Return to that defensive pattern and bingo - we shut teams down.

Also, we can grind out a win. Its an important characteristic of a great team, to win when you probably shouldnt. I know its rd 1 and teams are rusty but hey the signs in that respect were great. A little more strikepower to complement that and we'll be going places.

The negatives were:

*panicking in the 2nd half - pushing the pass and moving away from the game plan. Hindy threw a offload about 5 m forward on the 1st tackle 20m out! #-o Silly plays like that against the top teams will kill us.

* the lack of any decent kicking game. Geez it was shithouse today. Marty's grubber for himself and a chip that was spilt by Hornby was about it. Germ didnt do much off the boot. Someone has to step up, its not rocket science.

look its only rd 1 - i'm glad there are things to improve!!!!

 

[Raider_69]

well i think we were rusty, but so are everyone
i think next week will be tough but i am confident 8)

 

[Evergreen]

Two things won us the game this afternoon - Barrett's spilled ball and our defence. Keeping an attacking outfit like the Dragons to two tries is a fair effort considering the possession they had in our own half for the third quarter of the game.

By backing our defence, when it was finally decided that it was time to complete a set we managed to revert to a game plan somewhat similar to that of the first half, maintained some decent field position and the winning try resulted.

The first half of that game is proof enough to me that the Raiders will be amongst the top flight for this season. Consistency will be found with a few games under the belt, and our senior players like Schifcofske, Woolford, Wiki, Davico, Croker et al are already showing signs of leading beautifully from the front.

 

[Raider_69]

i would like to see Campo and Macca in the halves with Drew off the bench, IMHO that is our best option

 

[Raider_69]

i mean if campo gets in purely for his kicking it will be well worth it IMO
campo needs to be blooded early in the season to allow him to settle before the finals

 

[GreenGuy]

guys, guys, guys you need to relax a bit and be happy that luck is going our way as it was for much of last year. I'm sure matty picked up on what the problems were today, and it gave us something to work on...BRING ON THE PANTHERS!

 

[brenno]

if there is a repeat performance of the kicking displayed against the dragons this friday night against the panthers then i believe matty elliot would have to consider playing campo at 5/8th in the near future. He's 20yrs old i think he can handle it. Just in rnd1 the bulldogs blooded an 18yr old sensastion and the broncos blooded some 17yr old too.

 

[woodgers]

Agree all round. The kicking was tragic. Even Macca's try at the end I suspect that even though we are praising him at the moment Matty will have a word to him about trying that at that stage. The game was there to be shut down and we were buggered, why kick on the 2nd tackle? We could have had another 3 tackles from 10 out and rolled it in. Play the percentages is what we do so it was surprising that he did it. Lucky it came off for him.
The kicking in general play seems really disorganised and whether it is Macca or Woolford they both appear to be rushed into kicking. That is one area to be addressed also our forwards don't protect the kicker like other teams IMO.

 

[greeneyed]

I have to admit I groaned at the time ... "Macca what are you doing? Kicking on the second tackle?" But he shut me up!

 

[mike83au]

IT IS THE FIRST GAME OF THE YEAR FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! :roll:

Could someone please read the common sense sentence written above!? I can't believe the way some of you are already behaving. Depsite a very scrappy performance, we managed to get away with 2 points from a very difficult place to go play footy. Like Elliott said after the match, you don't expect to playing your best footy in Round 1 - if you do, it's a worry.

Congratulations on the Raiders starting the season with a win.

 

[greeneyed]

Seem's the coach had the same reaction as everyone else... from today's CT

"Grubber gamble gives Raiders win
By Chris Wilson
Monday, 15 March 2004

Canberra Raiders coach Matt Elliott was half-way through shouting an expletive before his angst turned to admiration.

Indeed, most Raiders fans would have had their hearts in their mouths when a bit of risky business from halfback Mark McLinden turned out to be the play of the day, ensuring Canberra a winning start to the National Rugby League season.

The Raiders defeated the fancied St George Illawarra Dragons 21-12 at Oki Jubilee Stadium in Kogarah yesterday, but they had to rely on a little bit of McLinden magic.

The Raiders led 15-2 at half-time but lost steam in the second half as the Dragons capitalised on Canberra's errors. McLinden was responsible for several of those mistakes as he sent several kicks spiralling into the crowd on the full.

But with seven minutes remaining and the Raiders holding a narrow 15-12 lead, McLinden backed himself again.

On tackle two, he grubbered a kick behind the Dragons' defence and regathered to score the winning try beside the posts.

"It was one of those instances as a coach where a bloke grubbers the ball on play two. I was half-way through an expletive and went ... great try!" Elliott said.

It all seemed to be in slow motion for McLinden who also panicked about his choice to kick.

"If you saw my whole game you would have questioned my kicking performance. I even questioned it myself," McLinden said. "For a split- second after that grubber I thought to myself 'my kicking hasn't been great all day and this is only going to magnify things if it doesn't come off'. But I gave it a crack and was happy I did.

"Sometimes you can go into your shell when you're having an off day."

It was a memorable start for the handful of green-clad fans in the crowd of 12,635 at Kogarah. But for the blanket of red-and-white fans covering the hill, it was forgettable for a classic blooper.

With the chance to give his team the lead, Dragons and Australian five- eighth Trent Barrett inexplicably dropped the ball when he attempted to dive across the line for an uncontested try. The Dragons were trailing 15-12 at the time.

"I was ready to have a yarn about the try under the sticks," Raiders captain Simon Woolford said. "It's not often you see someone do that, especially a player of his calibre."

 

[greeneyed]

In today's CT McLinden also blamed himself for allowing St George back into the match.

"I'm quite embarrassed" he said. "I was a little bit rusty. My kicking game all day had been fairly poor so if that grubber hadn't come off it would have only added to my woes. Thankfully it paid off."

McLinden said he was in doubt for next Friday due to a badly corked leg. "If we were playing next Sunday I wouldn't worry about it but Friday night is a quick turnaround and corks can prove a bit of a problem. It's bad enough having one cork from early in the first half but when you get hit in the same spot again it is fairly painful."

Coach Matt Elliott, though, defended McLinden's overall game:

"His first half was great. I just think with the amount of defence we were required to do in the second half, when they did throw a fair bit of traffic at him as well he just ran out of steam and we lost a bit of direction. He didn't have that punch or energy to get us around the park."

On the dropped ball over the line from Barrett coach Matt Elliott suggested it stung his team into action.

"The Dragons certainly had a lot of momentum at that time and that error gave us a little bit of a kick" Elliott said.

Despite the second half lapses, Elliott saw a lot of positives in his team toughing out a close win. "The important thing is that we demonstrated we can go the hard way when we needed to. In the first half we showed that when we stuck to our process and our plan, I felt very comfortable. We got away from that at the beginning of the second half but the opposition can play a bit. We had to fight like anything to get away with a victory."

 

[greeneyed]

In today's CT, Raiders prop Ryan O'Hara said he hoped his pack's match winning first half display earns some more respect from other NRL teams this year. O'Hara shrugged off a hamstring scare to pound the St George pack in a dominant first half display. It was O'Hara's bust that set up Adam Mogg's try.

"Our pack is pretty under rated even when we have guys like Luke Davico and Ruben Wiki, who have been the two form forwards over the last four or five years. Throw in Ian Hindmarsh, Tyran Smith and the rest with Simon Woolford leading the way from hooker. We trust in each other and we all know that we can dominate teams. It wasn't a big surprise to us."

O'Hara also has complete faith in Mark McLinden as a match winner. "Marty is on another planet. But we all trust in him to do what he wants. Our job as a pack is to go forward and we do that - his job is to create things. How he does it is his business, we don't really care."

O'Hara said the Raiders out smarted the Dragons in the first half. "We played tough up the middle and made a lot of yards to create opporunities for our quick men. IN the second half they got the roll on first and that put a lot of pressure on us. To our credit we played tough and hung on for a win."

He praised the team's stoic second half defence. "That's just the mentality of our team and we just wanted to win so bad. Although they scored a couple of tries and we were on the back foot a lot of the time in the second half, ... we dugh deep and held them out as much as possible."

Coach Matt Elliott said "We can certainly be a very physical side when we have half the ball. It's very hard to be very physical when you have only got a very small amount of ball as we had in the first part of the second half."

O'Hara admitted his hamstring troubled him. "I was feeling it out there but I tried not to think about it and after a bit of rest this week it should be 100% hopefully. I got through today without any problems so it should be sweet for taking on Penrith. It's just a slight strain and feels sore but our physio Ed Hollis warmed it up real well beforehand. I'll work on it at training and do the rehab."

Regarding Friday night's game O'Hara said Penrith will "be fired up too after that defeat on their home soil. They'll be looking for a big game but at home we don't intend giving an inch."

Meanwhile, Matt Gaffa had a bad Sunday afternoon, after having been dropped back from the NRL side just before the game. "At the start of the week I told myself not to expect to play because I didn't want to put myself through that pressure and then be disappointed by missing out. I didn't get my opportunity this week but there's still 25 rounds to go so hopefully I'll get an opportunity some time this year."

But even worse, Gaffa suffered a corked hip late in the Premier League loss to St George (26-12). "My hip feels pretty sore. I can't lean over to my left because it hurts too much." He suggested that it may be a positive for the Premier League side that they lost first up.

 

[thickos]

Nice bit of history. Canberra's 21-12 victory was our 300th win ever!

 

[Steven Gerrard]

Not that anyone was counting of anything ay thickos :lol: