Sydney Roosters’ desperate NRL season lurched into crisis mode on Monday as Canberra eased their way to a 38-12 victory at the Sydney Football Stadium.
The defeat saw last year’s beaten grand finalists sink to second-last on the ladder, with the improving Raiders moving above Parramatta and into 13th spot.
They ran in seven tries to the Roosters’ two, with Jarrod Croker finishing with a personal haul of 18 points.
The struggling Roosters, who have now won just two of their last 11 games, got off to the worst possible start when Braith Anasta’s opening kick-off went out on the full.
From the subsequent penalty, the Raiders marched deep into the home side’s half and young backrower Josh Papalii burrowed his way over for his third try in only his sixth NRL game.
The Raiders then doubled their lead in the 11th minute when Joel Thompson did well to get the ball down, amongst a clutch of bodies, after Aidan Guerra and Jason Ryles had been penalised for holding down Brett White just in front of their line.
But the Roosters responded well with their best spell of the game and reduced the deficit midway through the half when Todd Carney produced a perfectly-weighted chip-kick and Sam Perrett hauled in the ball and eased his way to the line.
The Raiders stretched their advantage five minutes before halftime when Joe Picker ran over debutant fullback Mark Khierallah to score after a great break from young fullback Nathan Massey.
However, Carney had the final word of the opening stanza against his former club, linking well with Tinirau Arona, then taking the return pass to score.
Blake Ferguson was the recipient of a lucky bounce six minutes into the second period when his hopeful kick and chase, wrong-footed Anasta and bobbled over his head allowing the former Cronulla man to regather and score to stretch the visitors’ lead.
Despite Carney showing flashes of the form that won him the Dally M Medal last year, the setback appeared to rock the home side’s confidence and the Raiders took advantage after the interval, looking the more inventive side in attack.
Croker added a fifth try for the Raiders on the hour-mark after the impressive Sam Williams spread the ball wide to the left wing, before the hard-working Shaun Fensom darted over for his third of the year.
And with six minutes remaining Croker went over for his second, rolling his way to the line with remarkable ease and then added his fifth goal of the evening as many of the 9,817 crowd streamed out of the stadium.
One downside for the Raiders was a suspected torn bicep tendon for NSW prop Tom Learoyd-Lahrs.
If the injury is confirmed, it is likely to keep the Test forward out for the remainder of the season.
Raiders coach David Furner was pleased with the performance but fell short of claiming their season had turned around.
He also accused the Roosters of trying to spoil the game, by slowing down his side’s giant forward pack and said he would be discussing incidents in the game with referees boss Bill Harrigan.
“I think there were two teams out there, one came to play footy and one came to spoil a bit … I was proud of how my players reacted,” Furner said.
“By no means are we out of the position we are in, but it has been two weeks of good footy and that has been pleasing after a couple of close recent losses.”
Despite having eight players from the side that started last year’s grand final in this team, Smith claimed a lack of experience was the reason for his side’s poor run of form.
The Roosters have not scored more than 13 points in a game since round four and Smith said many of his players were still learning about how to play first-grade football.
“I thought we put up a good fight, certainly in the first half, but a couple of our younger guys they don’t even know how hard it is to hold onto the ball when they get smashed,” Smith said.
“… I think anyone who can’t see what our problems are not having a go.
“We have six or seven guys out there who are not capable of playing 80 minutes out there together.
“The rest of the senior guys are playing at putting humpty dumpty back together again.
“They then finish up making errors because they are fatigued from holding it all together.
“I don’t see it as anything technical at the moment – that group of guys prepared as well as any team I have seen.”
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The short kick from Canberra went into the crowd.
