Canberra Raiders vs South Sydney Rabbitohs: NRL Finals final score, highlights

I'm still in therapy.

Excellent read Harry! :thumbup: Wishing the Raiders all the best for next week mate!

Great stuff Harry. I was introduced to the Raiders in 1989 when they won that magnificent GF against Balmain. But living in cities like Adelaide and Darwin there was never the same attachment or interest in league. I was a North Adelaide supporter in the SANFL, Adelaide Crows supporter in the AFL and a Raiders supporter in that order. It wasn't until I moved to Canberra in 1999 that league finally got into my blood and I understood the game. I've been a member now for about 5 years. I didn't get to the game last night - $560 for 7 people was a bit too steep - we had a family BBQ and all watched the game and it was almost as good as being there. Incredible tension. They seem to like to get into the grind in close games these days. To make the Grand Final is an incredible effort. I was expecting a much better effort this season with the recruitment of Bateman, Jack switching to 5/8 and the young blokes coming in. But the way they have played for each other and defended like their lives depend on it has really surprised me. Its just so good to watch. As is watching the Canberran community get behind the team. People don't realise that Canberra is one of the great cities. It has the best community I've ever lived in. As supporters we've mainly experienced disappointment. But this year is different. I will be so happy if blokes like Croker, Sia, BJ, Rapana, Sezer etc get rewarded for their years of slog. One more river to cross. Dare to dream.

The top knot wins hands down - not a good look - never mind - we're all different

Being overseas away from home in northern Canberra, I only managed to follow up the game using the ABC coverage over the ABC listen app. I was in the lift when Canberra scored the first try. I jumped and cheered quietly. My 1yo son lifted his hands in the air to mimic me with a priceless smile on his face. Well done Raiders! The Viking clap brought tears to my eyes. When I watched the video footages on the net, my eyes were on the fans cheering. How I wished to be there in Bruce stadium. Two weeks ago, I predicted Raiders going all the way to face the Storm again in the grand final. The Raiders did their bit. Now, the Storm need to do theirs!! :stoked:

that's what the Manly fans said last week, and like last week, refs made a lot fewer errors than either side tonight

Good luck with Corey Allan next year mate. You'll need it. He is useless! As Walker BOMBS a TRY (in replay). He just had to go straight or cut to his left! Why step back in to a defender? Aaaargh!

Also, can we just celebrate the fact that there was a tough, quality game of football played and neither set of fans came out whinging about the refs? I thought they did a pretty good job all night. Especially referee Reynolds with the sin binning.

I just wrote this on Facebook but I thought people here might appreciate it too. I’m sure many of you can relate, either as Raiders fans or through experiences with your own clubs. Please forgive the indulgence. Here’s a very long story about sport, and community, and about how the things that we learn to love in childhood resonate out into our adulthood. I was born in 1979 in Royal Canberra Hospital. Less than three years later, in 1982, the Canberra Raiders rugby league team were formed. They played in the New South Wales Rugby Football League, which became the Australian Rugby League, which is now called the National Rugby League (they also played in the Super League, but that’s a whole other story). They quickly became successful: they payed in their first grand final in 1987, and won their first grand final in 1989 - a game which is still regarded by many as the best rugby league grand final ever played in Australia. And I followed them all the way: I went to games with my dad, and my brother, and we yelled and cheered and celebrated when they did well. Because you see the Raiders represented a different side of Canberra: listening to commentary on a Raiders game, it was pretty much the only time you could hear someone from interstate say the word “Canberra” and not be talking about politics. As the Raiders rose to become the best rugby league club in the world, following their games became the only time you - I, a boy born and raised in Canberra and who loved and still loves my home town - could hear the word “Canberra” and have it be associated unequivocally with praise and admiration. Because sport can do that for a community: it can give that community an identity which is something closer to how it sees itself, it can rewrite how the world sees a place. The Canberra Raiders in their golden era won three grand finals - in 1989, in 1990, and in 1994. Central to all of those wins, central to the team for the entire period, crucial to them, was their halfback, their main playmaker: Ricky Stuart. Born just outside Canberra, went to school in Canberra, learned how to play the game in Canberra, and rose to become, at the time, the best player in the world in his position. Played for New South Wales. Played for Australia. Won games wherever he went. Not exactly a likeable guy, but a champion footballer. If ever there was someone who deserved to play his entire career at the Canberra Raiders, it was Ricky Stuart. But he got old, and the club had to build for the future, and the competition’s salary cap made few concessions for a team like Canberra which developed its own players rather than poaching stars from other teams. So Ricky had to go. And teenage me, emotional as teenagers always are, was devastated. Ricky Stuart played one last season for the Canterbury Bulldogs, the team that Canberra had beaten in the 1994 grand final, but it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right. The Raiders should’ve been allowed to keep him. For years afterwards, as Stuart retired and then moved into coaching in Sydney, there seemed to be bad blood between him and the club he’d helped make. And that future, that the club had been banking on when they let Stuart go? It never came. After 1994 there was nothing. The once-universally admired club became the laughing stock of the competition, perennialy hopeless. They developed player after player only to watch so many of them move to better money at other clubs and become stars. Finals appearances dried up. It became routine for experts at the start of a season to tip the Raiders to come last. And because I had followed them as a child, and because I’d celebrated those three grand final wins, I kept following them. I cheered their infrequent wins and lamented their frequent foolish plays, they’re many defeats-from-the-jaws-of-victory. In 2004, ten years after the Raiders’ last grand final, I moved from Canberra to Melbourne. I watched Raiders games however I could: in pubs, online, alone, with other Canberrans who were far from home. Sport is objectively ridiculous but it gives you some way by which to connect to a community you might not even be aware of. That’s something important, I think. Then a few years ago the Raiders reached their nadir: they sacked a coach - 1994 grand final legend David Furner - for the first time in their history. It wasn’t working. Players didn’t respect him, they kept acting out. To replace him as coach the club brought back - Ricky Stuart. He’s been there since 2014, the head coach of the team he was forced out of as a player 15 years previously. Results have been patchy. But he’s slowly remade the club into something like himself: competitive, resilient, smart, tough, entertaining. Players have been recruited, and let go. There’s been a bit of hit-and-miss. A 2nd place finish and a loss in the grand final qualifier in 2016 was followed by two seasons sitting near the bottom of the ladder. But this year, finally, things have started going right. They’ve been near the top of the ladder all season. They’ve won games they should’ve lost. They’ve learned how to make winning a habit. This year is the 30th anniversary of the Canberra Raiders first grand final victory. It’s the 25th anniversary of their most recent. It’s been a long quarter of a century for a team I’ve followed as my own for nearly my entire life. And tonight Ricky Stuart, prodigal son, former champion halfback, now head coach, has taken his Canberra Raiders to their first grand final in 25 years. You never lose the child in you. He or she or they is always in there, somewhere, for better or for worse. And regardless of what happens in the grand final next week the boy in me who cheered and yelled and whooped and hollered at the Canberra Raiders his whole life is tonight over the moon

No. I told you mate. I'm on a mission from "Freddie" on behalf of the Blues and I'm going deep, deep undercover. I'm going to coach all the little North Korean kiddies and teach them how to drop the ball, pass wide of the mark, drop off tackles and mistime kicks. We should start to see the fruits of my efforts sometime in the next 10 years. :laughing:

If ONLY I had been wearing my luck Rabbitohs boxer shorts! I let the boys down. It has worked so far in the run up to the finals. Except for the Roosters in the Qualifying Final. ;-)

Watching the game now, 25 mins in. Sezar falls off Graham in the tackle. Should have been a try to Johnston (but Graham should have passed before the line for an easy try. Leilua plays the ball after a call of play on which was penalised last week and Hodgson was allowed to stay on without a HIA even though he staggered and was clearly concussed and sets up the Raiders first try after a drop by imbecile Corey Allan when Hodgson SHOULD have been off the field. Unbelievable!

Just footy mate. We all get a reset next year and tell each other how good we are. :thumbup:

That was great. After the amount of defence the Raiders did in the middle of the 2nd half and then Chanze getting binned I thought it was over and Souths would run them down. But Paps...bloody Paps...if anyone deserved a try tonight it was him as he was absolutely massive. I don't think I've gone that mental since Larkham kicked that field goal in the semi against SA in the 1999 world cup. Wasn't a supporter until 1996 so I missed the Raiders golden years, so this feels great.

Big question is which CNK haircut is worse...his current bowl or his early season top knot...?

Wow that was incredibly tense. Raiders defence was a amazing. Seriously Souths would have put on 20 plus against any other team. I was amazed that they only had 6 points with a couple of minutes to go. Josh Papalii was absolutely amazing. And Hodgson's first half was brilliant. My throat is still recovering from shouting when Papa scored that try. Still don't know how we won that. Souths played a lot better than they did the previous week so full marks to them. No one gave them much of a chance. The Raiders get to play in their first Grand Final for 25 years. You wouldn't say they were brilliant tonight but they seem to know how to win close finals. At least we are in it and anything can happen on the day. Thanks for all the congrats from fellow posters - its been a long wait. And commiserations to Papi, steveng, Con etc. Souths put in a great effort - you should be proud of them.

Papi, you’ll be holding your head high old boy.

Yes PS, you've been a legend for the Bunnies all year but, them the breaks and "We Will Be Back" bigger and better next year! Very proud of the boys they put in a great effort considering all the rabble we've had in the last few months!

"See you at the Caxton then brother!" Actually, the Victory hotel was my old watering hole. ;-)

Sheaf Stout. For strength.