Raiders’ Jack the Ripper sinks Titans

JACK Wighton sounded a warning to Canberra’s NRL premiership rivals with a scintillating performance to pilot the Raiders to a 36-16 win against the Gold Coast.

Wighton bagged two tries in a dominant outing at Cbus Super Stadium as the Raiders overcame a slow start to remain in top-four contention.

After a patchy post-COVID period, last year’s beaten grand finalists have now won five of their past six games and are well in the crucial top-four mix with five rounds to play.

Canberra’s only defeat in that time was a 28-12 loss to the competition-leading Panthers.

While the Raiders have missed star hooker Josh Hodgson (knee), Wighton can ensure they are a genuine premiership threat if he continues his form at five-eighth.

Last year’s Clive Churchill medallist busted seven tackles, ran for 80m and scored two tries within six minutes to help Canberra to a 22-4 halftime lead.

Despite trying hard, the Titans were never able to get back into the contest as Raiders forward Ryan Sutton (191m), Joe Tapine (141m) and Josh Papalii (153m) battered their rivals.

While Canberra’s form has been mixed in 2020, what can rarely be questioned is the Raiders’ effort and nothing summed that up better than Papalii’s remarkable ankle tap.

Midway through the second half, Titans halfback Jamal Fogarty, in his debut as captain, raced into open space from a 20m restart and had no-one in front of him with 20m to go.

But the 120kg Papalii refused to give up, trailing Fogarty for 60m before producing a desperate dive to trip his much-smaller opponent and force a knock-on.