Raiders bury Rabbits to stay in contention
THE Canberra Raiders’ season is still alive after they easily accounted for the South Sydney Rabbitohs 32-18 at ANZ Stadium yesterday.
It brings them within two wins of eighth-placed St George Illawarra.
The Raiders will welcome back Josh Papalii and Jordan Rapana from suspension for next week’s trip to reigning premiers Cronulla as they look to start a winning streak over the final five games of the season to try and force their way into the eight.
Dave Taylor might be set to sign a three-year deal with the Toronto Wolfpack, but he’s hit form at the perfect time for the Raiders with another powerful display.
But it looked like it might be a different story when the Raiders got off to a terrible start and were lucky the Rabbitohs didn’t make them pay. Canberra were forced into a goal-line dropout from the opening kickoff and Souths centre Hymel Hunt should’ve scored from an Adam Reynolds grubber in the second minute, but he couldn’t get it down before going dead in goal.
A series of Rabbitohs errors had them under the pump and that pressure eventually told.
Jarrod Croker found some room to score the opening try and draw level with Canberra legend Brett Mullins as the equal second all-time try-scorer for the club.
Aidan Sezer put in a wellplaced kick that caught out Souths winger Robert Jennings, who tried to trap it with his foot only to kick it into the path of Joe Tapine for the second-rower to score. Souths hit back, with Cody Walker’s switch into the halves paying dividends. He out-hustled Raiders fullback Jack Wighton to get to his own grubber and open the Rabbitohs’ scoring.
Raiders hooker Kurt Baptiste, again starting at dummy half with Josh Hodgson at lock, showed another string to his bow with a grubber out of dummy half forcing a goal-line dropout.
Off the back of that and a Tapine line break, Canberra rookie Nick Cotric was able to continue his stellar season with yet another try.
The 20-6 halftime lead was soon cut, with a Reynolds grubber initially beating everyone to fall into the path of Tyrell Fuimaono and the Souths centre scored his first NRL try. The Canberra Times