Canberra Raiders Grand Final

For the past few years (five now I think) the three of us have been Canberra Raiders members.

For the uninitiated, rugby has two codes; rugby union which has a strange and complex set of rules but is generally viewed as more of an upmarket sport, and rugby league, which is a simplified version of union, still with the odd confusing law but generally viewed as the more ‘working class’ sport .

The schism between the codes occurred in the late 1890’s due to a debate about professionalism.

League has its origins in the north of England whereas Union is predominantly south. There are differences in terms of the number of players too (15 in union, 13 in league) and points for tries and penalties, scrums etc but I won’t go into that here.

Canberra Raiders are Canberra’s rugby league side. We currently have a Union side too – the Brumbies, but whenever we’ve been to see them the crowd is so quiet it’s been akin to sitting in a library.

Our love affair with the Raiders has grown over time. The club has a highly effective community outreach programme and as well as all the home games we attend almost all of the ‘meet the Raiders’ sessions throughout the city.

The players are always polite and friendly, and the kids quickly established favourite players. Rugby league has a bad reputation for players misbehaviour – with catalogues of drug and drink misdemeanours, but Raiders (generally) has a good record in terms of that, with coach Ricky Stuart not tolerating poor behaviour either on or off the pitch.

Sadly, over time our favourite players have come and gone, but when you watch a team for a while you realise that the club truly is bigger than its composite parts. In short, the three of us genuinely do #bleedgreen.

In terms of success, the last few years following the Raiders has been a bit barren. A semi-final defeat against arch-rivals Sydney Sharks was all we had really had to shout about.

This season was different though. The club had a new spring in its step. Rough and tough English-import John Bateman was brought in at the start of the season, Josh Hodgson (another English import) had missed a lot of the previous season through injury but was now fit, Jack Wighton (who had been disgraced for fighting in Canberra town centre) had a new role of five-eighth and fan-favourite Josh Papalli led from the front piling on the distance with each Canberra possession. Raiders captain, local boy Jarrod Croker was also to be an ever-present.

I think we missed one home game throughout the season.

We realised throughout that it had been twenty five years since Raiders had last tasted glory, but after negotiating a tricky qualification (during which they defeated a very strong Melbourne Storm 12-10 and then beat Rabbitohs 16-10 in an exhilarating Preliminary final) they found themselves in the Grand Final against Sydney Roosters.

Roosters are a glamour side. Funded by wealthy Sydney businessman Nick Politis they are a team of stars and (many say) overpaid stars. The odds were against Raiders, not least as the game was played in Sydney – effectively the Roosters back yard.

The three of us travelled up to the game early. The atmosphere around Sydney Olympic Stadium was fabulous and, most notably everywhere seemed shrouded in the green of the Raiders. We soaked up the excitement then ventured to our seats high up in the packed stadium. There were just shy of 90,000 people there.

It was a terrific experience – the sort that still gives you goosebumps for months afterwards when recalling it. The Raider's fans do a 'viking clap' at the start and it was phenomenal.

We'd all decided the first fifteen minutes were vital. If Roosters got away then Raiders would never come back, but instead it was a much more even contest. An awful decision gave the Roosters the perfect start, the ball rebounding off one of the Roosters trainers but the Roosters were bizarrely given the resulting feed in from which they scored.

A penalty then gave the Roosters an 8-0 lead half way though the second half. Jack Wighton scored a cracking try and the score was 8-6 at half time. The second half was similarly tense - Roosters bad-guy Cooper Cronk was sin-binned and Raiders scored the resulting penalty to tie the scores at 8-8

Raiders didn't take advantage of the extra man, and with only six minutes remaining the referee made a howler calling 'six again' (i.e six more passes for the Raiders) then changing his mind. This gave Roosters the psychological edge and Tedesco (somewhat criminally) ran away and scored a try that gave the Roosters the Premiership at 14-8.

So we trudged back to the station. It was a sad ride home, but I was glad that we had gone along. I’m sure it won’t be another 25 years until we’re watching another Raiders final. #Bleedgreen