Canberra Raiders resurgence saves coach David Furner from the axe

THE late-season resurgence of the Canberra Raiders is proof nice guys don't always finish last in the cut-throat world of rugby league.

Furner

THE late-season resurgence of the Canberra Raiders is proof nice guys don't always finish last in the cut-throat world of rugby league.

Six weeks ago, Canberra coach David Furner was poised to get the sack, with former teammate Ricky Stuart lined up to take the helm in next season.

Today, the Raiders are on the cusp of becoming the surprise packet of the finals as they shoot to make it five straight victories when they take on the Warriors in New Zealand next Sunday.

Listed by TAB Sportsbet last month as $21 long shots to make the top eight, the Green Machine are now on target to become the feel-good story of the opening week of the finals.

Raiders captain David Shillington applauded coach Furner for showing poise in the eye of a storm when persistent speculation about Stuart replacing him refused to let-up.

"Our little winning streak has coincided with when Ricky Stuart ended up signing with the Eels and all the speculation about Furnsy's job finally slowed down," Shil- lington said.

"There was a period there where I think we were even being mentioned as possible wooden-spoon favourites, so it just goes to show a week really can be a long time in football and a couple of months can change your season.

"But it doesn't count for anything if we rest on what we've achieved so far and drop our guard and go over to New Zealand and get beaten by the Warriors.

"I hope now that we're playing well again Furnsy gets a lot of the credit because he deserves it.

"With injuries and everything else we've had to encounter this season, it's been tough at times, but he's stuck solid the whole time and the results are starting to show."

Furner produced one of the best game plans of the season last Friday night to completely outclass premiership front-runners the Bulldogs and bring to an end their 12-match winning streak.

By targeting Canterbury's compressed defence on the edges, the Raiders were able to successfully exploit Bulldogs wingers Jonathan Wright and Sam Perrett to re-ignite the Green Machine's top- eight aspirations.

With speculation rife the Bulldogs were poised to rest captain Michael Ennis, Dally M Medal favourite Ben Barba and Aiden Tolman, punters invested more than $500,000 on the Raiders in a variety of betting options.

By kick-off, Bulldogs coach Des Hasler had decided only to give his skipper Ennis the weekend off to rest the knee injury which plagued him at the start of the season.

The Bulldogs were way off their game, kicking out on the full, dropping passes and once again conceding a litany of penalties.

"I was a bit surprised by the Bulldogs, they made some uncharacteristic mistakes," Shillington said. "In the first half, when they were lining up a kick-off, they ended up kicking it out on the full.

"That's a bit of a trademark of how we were going during our bad patch just making unforced errors at the worst of times. Having said that, we were getting plenty of rub of the green.

"It was a danger game. People were pumping us up because the Bulldogs were supposedly going to be resting players.

"But we spoke about not going in with false confi- dence and trying to make sure we really put in a strong performance in front of our home fans."

However, Furner sought to temper the excitement, noting nothing is certain yet.

"We've got a job to do in that last-round game," Furner said. "That's to guarantee us a spot.

"It's in our hands, it's in our destiny and that's what we need to focus on."