Canberra put their second half jitters behind them and handed the Warriors their third straight NRL loss, lifting to a 23-16 away victory at Mt Smart Stadium on Saturday.
The Raiders’ last minute inclusion of winger Drury Low, laid the foundations for the away side – bagging a couple of tries on debut in the opening 20 minutes.
The Kiwi-born 20-year-old capitalised in the 11th minute when Warriors winger Patrick Ah Van failed to collect a pass from Lance Hohaia, with Low scoring under the bar for Canberra.
In the 18th minute, prop David Shillington took an inside ball from Marc Herbert and crashed over the line to extend the Raiders lead to 12-0.
Low came into Canberra’s Saturday night’s line-up after Daniel Vidot was dropped for disciplinary reasons.
Far from overawed, Low continued his golden start when he took a 30 metre pass from Josh Dugan down the left side, to bag a second try in the 20th minute as the rain started pelting down in Auckland.
The injury-plagued Warriors failed to capitalise on a couple of Brent Tate breaks in the opening ten minutes of the game.
The first was foiled by Canberra five-eighth, Terry Campese, as Tate looked for an inside pass to James Moloney.
The second, Tate broke into open pastures but blew the opportunity by throwing a poor pass, seeing Canberra take a 16-0 lead into halftime.
Ivan Cleary’s Warriors did some soul searching at halftime and put their first points on the board three minutes into the second forty, when some brilliant footwork from Ukuma Ta’ai put the Warriors back in the frame in front of a willing crowd of 11,499.
Ah Van, managed to redeem his earlier mistake in the 58th minute, taking a brilliant kick off the boot of Maloney to have the Raiders fearing they would again surrender a huge halftime advantage in the 2010 season.
A quick try from Joel Thompson in the 62nd minute and a field-goal from Marc Herbert with 10 to go secured a victory for the Raiders and put to bed any fears they were going to continue their trend of collapsing in the second half.
Canberra will be happy just to escape with victory having lost their past six games at Mt Smart and won only one of the last 10 away matches.
Tate scored a consolation try in the 77th minute as the Warriors head into what would appear to be a much needed bye next weekend.
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