Raiders Sneak Home

The Canberra Raiders have defied the odds to hold off a late charge from the Canterbury Bulldogs to win a thrilling Queen’s Birthday clash 28-26 this afternoon at Telstra Stadium in Sydney.

Canberra recovered from an early 10-0 deficit by scoring five unanswered tries between 14th minute to the 53rd minute that saw them take a commanding 28-10 lead, but with only 15 players at their disposal over the final 65 minutes because of injuries suffered by hooker Simon Woolford and prop Michael Hodgson they were forced to hang on grimly over the concluding stages to score the two point victory.

“It was a really great effort,” said Raiders captain Clinton Schifcofske at the post match press conference.

“You can’t really comprehend how hard it was with only 15 players.”

Raiders coach Matt Elliott echoed those sentiments after the game and when asked about his side’s chances of a top eight finish he was quite optimistic.

“I’m really proud of the boys,” said Elliott.

“We are a developing team, so I think we are in a bit better shape this year than we were last year.”

For Canterbury the story of the day was ill discipline with the ball in hand as the Bulldogs made an inexcusable 15 mistakes that saw them complete just 65% of their sets of six.

“In the first half we started off so well and then errors and penalties really hurt us,” said Canterbury fullback Luke Patten.

“We gave them too much footy and we got punished.”

With this being the third game in three days at Telstra Stadium there were worries about how the much maligned surface would hold up and whether it would stymie the attacking play of both sides, but that question was quickly answered by the Bulldogs as they gave the ball plenty of air and after just 10 minutes they found themselves ahead 10-0 courtesy of tries to winger Matt Utai and prop Chris Armit.

Things went from bad to worse for the Raiders as Hodgson was forced from the field and then soon after Woolford followed with a dislocated shoulder, but their absence was quickly forgotten when Schifcofske ghosted across the field and managed to slip around the outside of the Canterbury defence to score in the right hand corner.

He then turned four into six by landing the sideline conversion to cut the deficit to four points at the 14 minute mark (10-6).

Another brilliant piece of individual play at the half hour mark saw Canberra draw level when centre David Howell produced an amazing act of contortionism that saw him get outside Utai and then somehow place the ball down in the corner while he diving out of bounds.

The Raiders charge continued three minutes out from half time when Schifcofske fired a short ball to replacement forward Michael Weyman who crashed over the top of two Canterbury defenders to score next to the posts and send the visitors into the main break with a 16-10 lead.

The half time interval did nothing to slow Canberra down with Weyman making a long range bust down field and from the next play Schifcofske scored his second try of the afternoon to push the visitors lead out to 12 points (22-10).

A loose pass from Bulldogs half back Brent Sherwin near the half way line led to the next Raiders try with winger Phil Graham scooping up the ball and racing away to score between the posts to put the visitors further in front at 28-10 at the 53 minute mark.

Canterbury finally stopped the bleeding three minutes later when some quick hands from centre Cameron Phelps resulted in Utai’s second try of the game and when replacement player Dallas McIllwain touched down in the 63rd minute the Bulldogs were right back in the game only trailing by eight points (28-20).

The Bulldogs fans were in full cheer in the 69th minute when their side ran it on the last tackle and the attacking move got the desired result with lock Reni Maitua making a break before throwing a well timed pass on the inside to fullback Luke Patten to score close to the posts (28-26).

The final 10 minutes saw the home side throw everything at the tiring Canberra outfit, but as they have done all year the Raiders hung tough to eek out a thrilling two point win.

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