NRL 2022: Canberra Raiders defeat Gold Coast Titans after stunning second-half comeback
The Raiders turned around a woeful first half to produce the equal-best comeback in club history to stun the Titans on a milestone night for coach Ricky Stuart.
NRL
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Raiders legend Ricky Stuart became the second man to notch 200 games as Canberra coach on Saturday night, behind Tim Sheens, but after 35 minutes there was much to ponder.
After 80, there was relief.
Stuart’s side let 22 points in before they bothered the scorer at Canberra’s GIO Stadium against the Gold Coast Titans until the Raiders came charging home to win 24-22 and equal the best comeback in club history.
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“Total annihilation for 39 minutes by the Titans (and) Ricky Stuart is going to have to pull out one of his biggest tricks to turn that around (at half-time),” was how Cooper Cronk described it on Fox League.
And Stuart did, exclaimed with a brutal tackle by centre Semi Valemei out of the line, with seconds remaining, flattening Titans star five-eighth AJ Brimson.
Titans coach Justin Holbrook said panic was what halted the Titans after a blistering first half.
After racing out to a 22-0 just before half time, the Titans let in a late try before the break, which would be a sign of things to come as Canberra literally raided their opposition to steal the win.
“We started to panic and take shortcuts, look for some shortcuts and it came unstuck at the end,” Holbrook said of the second half. “They’re the sort of games we need to win and learn a lot out of.”
All the damage was done out wide, perhaps prompting Holbrook to rethink his decision to not rush mid-week signing Jamayne Isaako from the Broncos straight into a Titans’ jersey.
Isaako will remain with the Titans for the rest of the season before joining the Dolphins.
Selection for the Wests Tigers’, back at home on Thursday night, will prove an interesting Tuesday discussion and the coach understands the challenge ahead.
“We’re not the side that can put a good 80 good minutes together yet,” Holbrook said.
“We’ve got a really short turnaround into that game (against the Tigers), five days, so we need to get over this disappointment quickly and get ourselves up.”
The loss leaves the Titans one win from their first three games this season.
On the flip side, Stuart’s men moved just inside the top eight temporarily, celebrating the coach’s 200th game in charge of the Green Machine with a memorable come-from-behind win.
There was only one match Stuart could think of equalling it in context and that came seven years ago at Leichhardt Oval, farewelling prop Dane Tilse with a 30-22 comeback.
GULER AND HORSBURGH GET THINGS ROLLING
After his 200th of 445 games as an NRL head coach, Stuart heaped praise on two of his unheralded chargers.
“When you take off two players like Joe Tapine and Josh Papalii … they’re world class front rowers, (then) throw in Emre (Guler) and Corey (Horsburgh) and they keep the intensity and the quality going forward,” Stuart said post-match. “It’s a massive help to the team.”
Their performances showed the benefit of a strong off-season.
“Corey and Emre over the last two years – especially Corey – they’ve had really, poor off seasons because they’ve been injured.
“(This year) they both had a really healthy off-season and that’s what people don’t see.
“When you get a good base, good off-season and there’s confidence in the individual. Their talent comes to the forefront.”
STUART VINDICATED
A late change to start Matt Frawley out of position at hooker – never having played there in his life – instead of Tom Starling, who was originally named as Josh Hodgson’s replacement, proved fruitful in the second half.
Coming on after 25 minutes, Starling was dynamic from dummy-half, after the Raiders struggled to complete 50 per cent at the break.
“They were dead, they were buried,” Fox League commentator Dan Ginnane said.
And 55-year-old Stuart needed that comeback. Facing a mounting injury list that start showed similar concerns raised in a heavy 20-point loss to the less-fancied North Queensland, last week in Townsville.
The start was reminiscent of Gold Coast’s last visit to Canberra running away victors 44-6, in July. A season where Canberra bombed another finals opportunity finishing 10th for the fourth since Stuart took the reins.
In his 200 matches, Stuart has taken the Raiders to the finals just three times with a winning percentage of 51 per cent, making the 2019 Grand Final. Compare that to Sheens’ record of three premierships, the Raiders can ill afford starts like the one on Saturday night, and will need more wins like that.
Hodgson joins Nick Cotric (quad) and Harley Smith-Shields (ACL) among others on the injury list with concerns over Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad during the match.
SCHNEIDER STEPS UP
Returning from a bout of COVID, and filling the key role injured former Titan Jamal Fogarty was recruited for, rookie half Brad Schneider put a bad night with the boot behind him to clutch an unlikely win.
The 21-year-old – spotted by the late Peter Mulholland at the Queensland Schoolboy Championships in 2019 – put through the grubber for the final try expertly finished by Nicoll-Klokstad.
After 100 per cent conversion rate with the boot in the 24-19 win over Cronulla at home in round one, Schneider slotted the one that counted with a little more than five minutes to go.
TITANS NEED MORE FROM FIFITA
One of the game’s most damaging backrowers is million-dollar man David Fifita had something to prove in Canberra on Saturday night, and while there were signs, he did not get Gold Coast over the line that his pay cheque suggests he should.
After just eight runs for 69 metres last week, 22-year-old Fifita again started slowly, and this time could not rely on the heat of South-East Queensland to fall back on.
Again, on Saturday night, he hardly found the ball in the first 15 minutes warming into his work reaching 100 running metres by half time, but finishing with 164. He made 28 tackles and missed five.
Leading the run metres for his team is one thing, and a late charge down the flank with minutes remaining could have produced something, but it didn’t. The second half did not quite deliver the $3.5 million over three years he’s being paid.
Legend’s savage spray for Fifita
-Travis Meyn
Queensland legend Cameron Smith has put a rocket up David Fifita, urging the Gold Coast Titans weapon to live up to his $3.5 million price tag following a lacklustre start to the season.
After starting 2021 with a bang and scoring a club record 17 tries for the year, Fifita has been barely sighted in the opening two rounds of the 2022 NRL premiership.
Despite being leaner and meaner this year, Fifita has struggled to inject himself into matches against Parramatta and the Warriors, but did throw a sublime pass to put winger Greg Marzhew over last weekend.
Former NRL stars Willie Mason and Martin Lang were critical of Fifita’s efforts against the Warriors as he only made eight carries and was reluctant to work the ball out of the Titans’ half.
And now the NRL’s greatest ever player in Smith has joined in, urging Fifita to get more involved.
The bulldozing backrower ran for 127m in an 80-minute round 1 effort against the Eels, but only managed 62m against the Warriors before being benched with 15 minutes to go due to cramps.
On a salary worth more than $1 million-a-season, the Titans need Fifita to be firing constantly if they are to back up last year’s drought-breaking finals appearance.
“He’s on big money and if you’re on big money you need to have a fair bit of input,” Smith told SEN Radio. “I believe you need to have more input than eight runs for 69m – that was his running stats on the weekend.
“I know the game plan is not just built around David Fifita. But if you’ve got a damaging backrower, who many regard as the most damaging ball-carrier in the competition, you need to get him more ball than eight runs.
“Whether that’s a thing for the Titans halves, spine or game plan, or whether it’s just David wanting the ball.
“If I was a part of that footy side I’d be saying to David ‘mate, you need to have 15 or 16 carries for us today’ every week. We know how damaging and how hard he is to tackle. When he goes on those rampaging runs he beats four and five defenders and scores tries.”
Titans coach Justin Holbrook admitted the team needed to get Fifita more involved and said he had to strike up a better partnership with young halfback Toby Sexton.
“We’ve got to get his combination with Toby going better,” he said.
“They ran into each other once. That will come with time.
“The important thing early in the year is if you can get the wins together, your combinations will improve. That’s what we want to work on.
“The more involved we can get him, the better side we’re going to be. We will get better at that.”
The Titans had a very under-8s approach to using Fifita last year - passing him the ball and expecting him to bulldoze his opponents, which worked for the first half of the season.
They have been less reliant on Fifita this year and have looked to score in other ways heading into Saturday night’s clash with the Raiders in Canberra.
“That’s the way we want to be,” Holbrook said of the attacking versatility.
“We just want him to be a hard-running backrower.
“AJ (Brimson) had a hand in a couple of tries and Toby is a great organiser. We’ve got enough strike that we don’t want to rely on him.
“The more involved we can get him, the better we will be.
“He’s worked hard and we’re working hard on his skill level. He is so skilful for a big guy.
“Everyone just wants him to run.
“That was a great pass to Greg Marzhew. The more he can do that, the more oppositions can’t gang up on him and he can have a bit more joy with his carries as well.”
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