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Whenever I tell people that I support the Canberra Raiders, the response is always the same: “why?” It’s a question I ask myself more and more every year.
We’re a resilient lot, us long-suffering Green Machine followers, with a line in gallows humour that few other clubs can match.
The answer to the “why?”, especially considering I’m a Queenslander who’d only visited Canberra once and didn’t even go to a home game until 2009, is simple – Mal Meninga.
I was 10 years old when Meninga and his arm guard helped lead Jacko, Backo and co to the 1987 grand final, and they seemed as good a team to jump on as any.
Even with the formation of Brisbane Broncos the following year, the team with Woodger’s splashed across their chests was the only team that mattered.
Since then they’ve had me variously in tears (half-time of the 1989 grand final, when Jason Bulgarelli spilled that grubber in 2003), in raptures (full-time of the 1989 grand final, the entirety of the 1994 one), and in a general state of bewilderment (1995-present).
And still, the question persists: “Why?”
What is it that makes normally sane adults invest so much time and energy in a group of blokes we’ve (more often than not) never met, from a place we often have no geographical connection to?
Especially a team who, aren’t so much an escape from the futility of existence as confirmation of it.
I’ve tried going cold turkey on the Raiders in 2013 – even left the country for 10 weeks, missing every game bar the 24-20 miracle win over Melbourne in April.
But like a moth to the flame, I always come back.
My blind devotion, which has driven me to witness shocking defeats in Penrith, Campbelltown, Homebush and Canberra already this season, is about to take me across the Tasman to do it all again against New Zealand this Saturday.
Because following a team is a lot like life itself. You celebrate the small victories. You feel the pain of soul-crushing loss.
No matter which way the ball bounces, you just dust yourself off and get straight back into it.
And when the ultimate payoff of a premiership finally arrives?
You can answer that “Why?” with a resounding “Why the hell not?”
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