The light at the end of the darkened Raiders tunnel

With the Nines tournament kicking off in Auckland, the footy is finally back. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that the long wait is almost over.

Yet I can’t help but feel weird about seeing my team run out this year because it’s the first time since I started supporting the club that they could actually win the Premiership.

And that scares the living daylights out of me.

My dad took me to my first Raiders game in 1996. I couldn’t tell you who they were playing or what the score was, I was only 6 years old. But I must have enjoyed it because we went again and again and again.

Over the last 21 years I’d be surprised if I’ve missed more than a handful of home games. To say that the last 21 years for the Raiders have been up and down is an understatement in the order of saying that Laurie Daley was an OK footballer.

Sprinkled amongst some enjoyable seasons with moderate success (2003, 2008 and 2010 come to mind) have been many years of despair on and off the field.

It all began with the unfortunate purge following the 1998 season when salary cap issues forced the Raiders to offload Bradley Clyde and Ricky Stuart. They were two players who deserved to be one-club men had that taken away from them. Their replacements were not of the same quality, though how could they have been?

The poor results which followed saw promising young players head to greener pastures (Ben Kennedy, I’m looking at you) and gradually other heroes like David Furner and Daley retired, further depleting the talent pool.

Without the ability to land a star signing, the Raiders poured a lot of effort into developing juniors and trying to eek the most of toilers and journeymen.

There’s a long list of Raiders players who have played 50 or more games that many devout rugby league supporters would scratch their head to remember. Names like Brandon Costin (60 games between 1998 and 2000), Terry Martin (92 games between 2000 and 2006) or Sean Rutgerson (56 games between 2000 and 2003). For every Clinton Schifcoske there was a James Evans or Mark Asbock.

For every Mark McLinden there was a Alan Rothery or Marshall Chalk. I’ve got nothing against these men. I don’t doubt that they bled green and left everything out on the field. They just weren’t good enough.

Over the last 21 years, there have been moments that gave me hope, only to have that hope dashed. Seeing a young Todd Carney carve up defensive lines was a joy until he decided to take the cops on a merry chase around town. Watching a young Josh Dugan make try saving tackles and score length of the field tries was marvellous until he decided that having a cruiser on the roof was more important. Joel Monaghan… we’ll just leave it at that.

Beyond the rank stupidity of those young men, fate also decided to cruel the team. From the moment Todd Carney was sacked in 2008 until the home semi-final against the Tigers in 2010, Terry Campese put in some of the most dazzling performance in the five-eighth position that have been seen in the NRL era.

I still maintain that the Raiders would have beaten the Tigers if not for Campese suffering the first of three ACL injuries that night. Setback after setback led to one of the most talented players the Raiders have uncovered since Daley becoming a shadow of his former self and leaving the NRL.

When the Raiders limped to last place in 2014, I had consigned myself to the fact that they would never win anything.

Then there was last season. After so many years of disappointment, the light began to shine again. The move away from focussing solely on juniors to recruitment led to the signings of names like Soliola, Austin, Sezer, Whitehead, Leilua, Tapine, Paulo and Hodgson. The style of play changed to one that was more daring, more ambitious. The spine of the team that had long been plagued by weakness was suddenly strong.

You could say that the resurgence is purely down to personnel. It seems to be that way, looking at the players the club has had and comparing it to who they have now. I think it is down to culture.

It’s something that Ricky Stuart has spoken about that to the point of sounding like a broken record. It is certainly true that the enhanced quality of players has helped, but more than that, what the Raiders have now is a strong sense of self based on the notion that everyone is out to get us and we’re out to prove them wrong.

Ricky has taken everything that was good about those toilers and battlers that held the team up through the 2000s and has imbued that into a more talented roster.

It’s easy at times to support a bad team. Every win is a bonus. Every loss is what you expected to happen anyway. The Raiders could win it this year and that scares me. At the same time, I’ve never been more excited to be part of this Green Machine.