There are a lot of miserable parts of being a Raiders fan this year.
After a semi-promising beginning to the season – the club was actually two and two after four rounds – the club now seems to be on a fast track to the wooden spoon as the floggings pile up.
Surprisingly though, the worst part about the Raiders season hasn’t been the drubbings.
Getting beaten by 40 or 50 points is unpleasant but almost every team in the competition has been on the wrong end of one or two of those in the last few years.
No, the worst part of this season is how many times the Raiders have let the opposition have a bad game and still win. They say the mark of the great team is that they find a way to win even when they’re playing badly. If that is the case, then surely it is the mark of an awful team that they find a way to lose even when the opposition is playing awfully.
Just how badly have teams that have beaten the Raiders played? In 14 losses this year the Raiders have won either the missed tackle or error count on eight occasions.
The club has lost games where the opposition made double digit errors on numerous occasions. In Round 10 for instance, the Panthers missed 43 tackles, made nine errors and made only a paltry 1102 running metres and still beat the Raiders.
The Bulldogs had 21 missed tackles and 11 errors in their recent win in Canberra. The Broncos had 22 missed tackles and ten errors and still crushed Canberra 28-4.
When you play the Eagles or the Roosters or the Dogs you know you’re going to have to beat them; they’re not going to beat themselves. At the moment teams know they don’t need to be at their best, or toughest, to beat Canberra. They just need to show up.
Actually there is one thing even worse than letting the opposition play badly and still win. That is knowing exactly what the problem is and not fixing it. Any Raiders fan will tell you there are two major problems with the Raiders this year.
Firstly, the team has zero attack inside the opposition half. Let’s be clear, the Raiders forwards, and in particular Dave Shillington, have been doing their job in attack recently.
The forwards are gaining the field position the team needs and the team is getting repeat sets. But when given these opportunities in attack there doesn’t seem to be any plan beyond give it to Milf or bomb it to Croker.
The second main problem, and arguably the more pressing one, is the team’s defence on the edges. Quite simply it has been appalling. Teams have been going around the Raiders literally the entire season.
The Raiders left edge is reported to have conceded the most points of any unit in the competition and it’s easy for Raiders fans to believe that. Jarrod Croker attracts a lot of criticism for his defence and a lot of that is justified, but he is all too often left on island by his inside men.
Not that the right edge defence is much better. Whether it has been the departing Matt Allwood, the almost certainly departing Reece Robinson or the never to be seen again Bill Tupou, the right edge has also been a disaster.
When asked about the edge defence during Sunday’s post-match press conference Stuart said, “It umm can be fixed.”
Not exactly inspiring stuff, but it is worth remembering that the club was missing its best backline defender in Jack Wighton and powerhouse winger Edrick Lee. The inclusion of those two, plus Sisa Waqa next season, will go some way to improving the edge defence.
But the central figure in this tragedy remains Terry Campese. Sadly if the Raiders two main problems are lack of creativity in attack and edge defence then Campo is personally a big reason for both of those.
That Campese is no longer a first-grade standard five-eighth is now undoubted. I’ve written about it on the Roar and so have others. His attack is gone and his defence is terrible. At times on Sunday it seemed like the Warriors’ game plan was essentially middle, middle, middle, attack Campese.
This brings us to one final worst thing about being a Raiders fan this year: team list Tuesday.
Due to the club’s own poor roster development and arcane second tier salary cap rules the team is essentially hamstrung in who they can pick.
So on the weekend the team loses to a mediocre or downright bad team. They generally do so in exactly the same way as they lost the previous week, and the week before that and so on. Then, on Tuesday the same group of players gets picked.
What’s the old line about the definition of madness being doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
However this week will finally see changes after injury forced Ricky’s hand. Leading lights Shillington and Fensom will be absent but more importantly so will Terry Campese. Hopefully for Raiders fans, Tuesday will see a bold move to the future for the club with promising junior half Mitch Cornish brought back to first grade.
In three games to date Cornish has shown flashes of the talent that made him a junior Kangaroo halfback selected over Luke Brooks. Raiders fans will be hoping that the time back in reserve grade has only helped to nurture that talent.
If nothing else, Raiders fans deserve something to hold onto after this disaster of a season.
mushi
Guest
Really?
THE CHAMP
Guest
Your line speed will always look fast when your only back 5 metres .
Vivalasvegan
Guest
Storm lose and develop players every year. Don't know how Roosters manage the cap?
mushi
Guest
Having a good defensive cohesive line isn’t as easy as you think first everyone needs to instinctively know, and trust, who is helping in which tackles, do you shade this guy or that guy, will cover come across if you put a second man on player X or are you supposed to always hang off that guy and watch for the hole runner. If you need to actively think about this, or don’t trust the rest of your team to do their bit, it builds hesitation which stop the line moving up. The second part is caring, you need to dig in and have a go every single tackle and expend energy even if you don’t think you’ll need to. Whilst it is easy to say someone “should” do that regardless everyone is still human and you’ll tend to find that digging in is much easier to do when you’re winning. At the roosters he inherited a quality side with good experienced players that had player together a long time. Not saying he didn’t have to do anything but creating defensive cohesion wouldn’t have been the hardest task.
Jimmy
Guest
There is one thing for sure the Canberra club can produce top notch players. Carney , Duggan etc are wonderful players. They just need to develop some strategy to firstly make all their players toe the discipline line and secondly to have a solid development / retention policy. Unfortunately R Stuart is not the man for this job. Hang in their Raiders fans , dream of 89 when you go to sleep , things will get better. My thoughts are with you.
Mike from Tari
Guest
Doesn't take a great deal of coaching to get your team to move up in one line quicker than they are doing at the moment & he has 2 of the strongest defenders on his books.
Magic Sponge
Guest
Whats the record for consecutive spoons, could sticky get 7 . Lets go for gold
james t
Guest
I feel for the raiders fans sticky just doesn't have the cohones to make the tough calls. Drop campese bring in cornish milford at fullback its not hard. He has made it virtually impossible to.recruit any players, the players aren't morons they know he's average at best and they know that there better playing for.a syd club, which is sad but true. Look at fensom and crocker two great players who never get the accolades they deserve as of these two haven't played origin yet. Femsom is twice the player creagh is or boyd cordner. Crocker has been top point scorer for years, or atleast top three.
Andrew
Guest
"Hulk Sad: the misery of being a Raiders fan" HAHAHAHA...That cracks me up. I don't have to write anything else! lol!
Geoff the optimist from Bruce Stadium
Guest
Lachlan. I might be deluded but I actually like the look of the Raiders team this week. Injury may have forced his hand but at least Ricky is trying something different with Rapana to full back, Milford in to the halves, McIllrick to lock and Kennedy in his preferred second row role.. Getting Wighton and Edrick Lee back is a real bonus which will offer more in attack and stiffen up the defence. At least Cornish is in the team if not starting. They might surprise on Saturday night if they turn up with the right attitude. There have been a few positives this year such as the consistent form of Vaughan, Croker, Shillington and Fensom. As has been well documented Campese's continued poor form has been the real downside and I think this has affected the rest of the team. While it's been difficult for the past two seasons it only seems a short time ago that 24,500 were packed into Bruce Stadium to watch the Raiders flog the Sharks in the finals. Things can turn around pretty quickly in footy. Stuart really needs to target a quality full back and 5/8 for next season.
PNG Mari
Guest
Stuart is such a pain in the ass. He was once said to be rising star coach and now look whats happening to his coaching skills. Am a die hard Raiders (The Green Machines) supporter and have never seen Raiders being wooden spooners. Any way, thank you to Stuart for being a one term coah to your great former club and look for coaching carrier with another club eles where but not the Raiders. We the fans of Raiders NRL club are fed up with you. Good by Stuart.
curaeus
Guest
He took over a great Roosters team assembled by the former coach the late Graeme Murray. If you got the cattle, the results almost always follow. Give Sticky an ordinary lineup however......... I'm not a Raiders fan but still can't believe my mob (Tigers) beat Canberra after losing a bunch of players during the game and, quite frankly, playing badly! Its those kind of losses a coach should be worried about.
scar
Guest
team for saturday is still awful. we got the worst winger in nrl standards bill tupou back again. the warriors let him go only for my raiders team to pick a dud. have they got any fit wingers running around apart from this muppet. also cornish again starting on the bench. just start the bloke the season is gone for goodness sake.
AB
Guest
What do you expect when you have teams like the Broncos, Storm, Roosters all rorting the salary cap?
Jay C
Guest
Cheer up Raiders fans. If anything Stuarts record says that things will get worse, not better. If he has success it is always immediate, followed by a hard downward spiral. Maybe this is your good times. So cheer up.
mark
Guest
This team Tuesday was meant to be different with Cornish coming back in... Until he put Milford in the halves and Cornish on the bench. Why, that moves only helps the Broncos.
Samuel
Guest
Love ur work. As a die hard raider, it frustrates me when changes aren't made, even though they seem clear as day. I generally believe Stuart is to stubborn to admit what he's doing is wrong, se when a win does eventually come along he can say 'told u it would work' but by then obviously the season is over
Mike from Tari
Guest
When Stuart won the Premiership with Easts, the defence was moving forward in one line as fast as possible, it was brutal, so how come that since then he has not been able to get his teams to do that?
Knightblues
Guest
Its worse being a knights supporter, we have potentially a good team, the problem is (with a few rare occasions) it that it doesn't believe in itself.