NRL 2022: Canberra Raiders reveal aerial raid plan for error-prone Parramatta winger Waqa Blake
There’s more pain to come for out-of-sorts Parramatta star Waqa Blake, with Canberra revealing their plan to unleash hell on the gunshy winger.
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Canberra are preparing an aerial raid on out of sorts Parramatta winger Waqa Blake with Raiders halfback Jamal Fogarty promising to deliver several floating kicks which could haunt the Eels back three.
Blake is clinging onto his spot on Parramatta’s flank after a horror night with his hands courtesy of Nathan Cleary’s booming boot on Friday night. It is a blueprint Canberra are expected to follow this week with Fogarty aiming to test out the Eels winger.
Blake made four handling errors as he looked out of sorts under the high ball.
“We have a kicking plan for myself and Jacko (Jack Wighton) to get up a couple of spiral bombs or floaters at certain times,” Fogarty said. Sticky (Ricky Stuart) wants us to do that.
“If we can get a couple of floaters up that will be nice. We will kick to corners and keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
It remains to be seen if Parramatta coach Brad Arthur keeps the faith with Blake or recalls ex-Raider Bailey Simonsson who has lost his spot in recent weeks. Fogarty will spend the lead-up to the match perfecting his kicking game.
“It is a unique kick and they are pretty hard,” Fogarty said. “I tried to whack one up in the first half (against the Storm) and shanked it. You have to hit it in the sweet spot and be nice and controlled.
“If we can get a couple it’ll be perfect. Sticky gets up us if we’re not practising at training. You throw up a couple and he loves you.
“He doesn’t get his old footage out but he forgets how skilful and talented he was. He is arsey and he will kick it and it will go exactly where he wants it. You’ll try it and you want nail it but it’ll take me like 10 goes and he does it once and Ricky expects you to be like him.”
Fogarty was at his controlled best during Canberra’s ambush of the Storm in Melbourne on Saturday night. He gets to face an Eels side who defeated the Raiders 28-20 in round 12. That was a different time for a then out of sorts Canberra. It was Fogarty’s first game of the season after he missed the opening three months.
“We have been on a bit of a journey for the last couple of weeks,” Fogarty said. “To see it all paying off and to come down and beat a brilliant Melbourne side makes me really proud.
“It was good to watch the Eels to see what they are doing. We played them earlier in the year but finals is different. You can watch as much footage as you want but you have to be up on game day.”
RAIDERS’ FREAK TRY ENDS STORM ERA OF DOMINANCE
By Lance Jenkinson
Not even a hat-trick to Melbourne Storm winger Xavier Coates could stop a red-hot Canberra Raiders from moving through to the second week of the NRL finals.
The Raiders twice stared deficits in the face and came back to record a famous 28-20 victory over the Storm at AAMI Park on Saturday night.
The game-sealing try by Jordan Rapana came through a stroke of luck after the ball had falconed off the head of teammate Sebastian Kris, but there was no luck in the way the Raiders completed their hit-and-run mission.
Despite winning eight of the past nine games, Raiders coach Ricky Stuart believes his side is still underrated as the eighth-ranked finalist.
“Going into next week’s game [against Parramatta Eels], no one expects us to win,” he said.
“It’s easy for us, no one expects us to win, no one expects us to beat Parramatta at Bankwest, so we’ll have a fun week at training, do our best for our prep and see how it goes.”
For all of the Storm’s early dominance, they had little to show for it on the scoreboard.
An emotional Storm coach Craig Bellamy said the topsy-turvy elimination final loss somewhat encapsulated his side’s inconsistent finish to the season.
There were patches of brilliance from the Storm but let-downs were never too far away as they leaked 28 points to the Raiders on the back of some slipshod defending.
“You don’t win semi finals games letting the opposition score 28 and they scored a couple of soft ones too,” Bellamy said.
“The last two weeks our defence was pretty good and our attack needed a bit of fine-tuning.
“Then today to score 20 points, that should be enough to win a final. You let 28 in and you’re going to lose every time.”
The Raiders struck first when forward Joseph Tapine, setting the tone early, produced a delicious offload for Jack Wighton to breeze through the middle.
Wighton’s break would end in a superb try to centre Matthew Timoko in the corner against the run of play.
Stuart was proud of his team’s response after they were “out on their legs” early. “I thought their response to that first seven minute period was a big part of our win,” Stuart said.
The calf injury that had hampered Jahrome Hughes recently seemed an afterthought.
Hughes had a crucial role to play in the Storm’s first two tries, scored by winger Coates.
Coates leveled the scores when he finished off a nice team before putting the Storm in the lead when he connected with a well-weighted cross field kick by Hughes to score again in the corner. But whatever control the Storm had over the first 40 disappeared when errors began to creep in.
Raiders halfback Jamal Fogarty produced a fantastic individual try straight from the scrum, shrugging off some weak Storm defending by Nick Meaney and David Nofoaluma to give the visitors back the lead.
It was a real team lifting try for the Raiders, as evidenced by the vigor in their next kick chase, which forced a rare error from Hughes the next set.
Raiders forward Elliott Whitehead made the Storm pay, barging over the line for a second try in four minutes and the Raiders had a handy 16-8 buffer heading into half time.
The Storm needed to be the first team to score in the second half and Coates saluted with a third try to reduce the deficit to two.
Marion Seve was the mastermind in the lead up with a scintillating line break, brushing off a tackle attempt from Kris.
In a concern for the Storm, Hughes went down after his head got jolted in a tackle from Tapine and needed a HIA, leaving the Storm without a key playmaker for a period.
Tapine was reported and the resulting penalty gave Munster a chance to level the scores, only for him to miss.
But the Storm would regain the lead through a barnstorming Nelson Asofa-Solomona, who was starting to impose himself on the contest.
The hulking forward was set free by a scampering Harry Grant, who had the Raiders defence back-tracking.
With the Raiders staring down the barrel of elimination, Wighton put in a searching grubber kick with 15 to go and Hudson Young came from nowhere to plant the ball down before the Rapana sealer.
Bellamy was left with a bittersweet taste from 2022.
The Storm was ravaged by injuries to key players, including to superstar Ryan Papenhuyzen, but battled on to be in the conversation for a top four berth.
Bellamy would not use it as an excuse for the Raiders loss, saying the visitors “defended a lot better than us today”.
“It has been a hard year, it’s been a long year with the injuries that we’ve had and obviously a few other things happening,” he said.
“I thought the guys did a good job to finish where we finished [on the ladder] but just to go out on that performance, especially defensively, was disappointing.”
What hurt Bellamy the most was the Storm’s inability to send off a number of club stalwarts with a successful finals campaign.
Captain Jesse Bromwich, his brother Kenny, utility Brandon Smith and forward Felise Kaufusi played their last game for the club before moving to new clubs.
“They’ve been tremendous for us — all of them,” Bellamy said. “Obviously Jesse and Kenny, they’ve been here since 2008 — that’s a long time — they’ve done a lot for our club.
“I just think for me, I’m so disappointed today, it is more about for them.”
The realisation that his Storm career was only starting to hit Jesse Bromwich.
“This place has done a lot for me and my family,” he said. “I’m really going to miss this place, so it’s really tough.”
The Raiders will face week one losers Parramatta Eels in a sudden death semi final next weekend.
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