NRL Round 9: Canberra slump to fifth straight loss with their Newcastle collapse

The Raiders started the year as premiership contenders but have now lost five games in a row and face the possibility of missing the finals.

The Knights proved too good for the Raiders in Wagga Wagga in their round-9 game. Picture: Kelly Defina/Getty Images

The pressure and drama at Canberra will be ramped up after the Raiders equalled their worst run under Ricky Stuart, throwing away a 16-point lead to go down 24-16 to Newcastle in Wagga Wagga on Saturday.

The NRL’s out-of-tune Green Machine has now dropped five successive games for the first time since Stuart’s first year in charge in 2014.

It comes after a week of unwanted headlines over the future of Englishmen Josh Hodgson and George Williams and a stinging Instagram post from Joe Tapine’s wife criticising Stuart’s coaching.

Two-time premiership winner Cooper Cronk has no doubt the off-field dramas are impacting on the on-field performances.

“The off-field situation is playing a part in it,” he said.

“It has compounded the football performance. If it was just football, it would be easy to fix.

“They need to re-set the whole base. Their season is not done, but a good team does not leak that many points when the game is in the balance.

“The people in Newcastle jerseys wanted it more.”

Stuart denied the off-field problems are destabilising his side, insisting he was in control of a “happy camp”.

“They’re problems that you read, they’re not problems inside the camp,” he said.

“They’re problems that everyone enjoys reading and speculating on, but we’re a happy camp in regards to what you read.”

This loss will hurt deeply as the game appeared to be in their keeping at halftime.

Canberra led 16-0 at halftime but dropped off alarmingly as the Knights launched a comeback off the back of some Kalyn Ponga brilliance.

He scored a try and set up the match sealer for Jayden Brailey.

The Raiders failed to score a point after the break, continuing their worrying trend of second half collapses.

The Knights scored two minutes after the interval after catching the Raiders off guard with a short kick-off and used that momentum to take control.

Ponga did it all himself on the hour, scoring a great individual try to bridge the gap to just four.

When Tyson Frizell crossed in the 67th minute, the Knights led for the first time.

With injury-hit Canberra running out of interchange players, Newcastle shut down a series of late raids and scored through Brailey to claim their first win in seven games.

Proud Knights coach Adam O’Brien said: “It was a performance that we needed. It was what we wanted.

Canberra coach Ricky Stuart lamented his side’s lacklustre defence during the week. Picture: Getty Images

O’Brien challenged his side to stand up and show him “the real Newcastle’ after they copped it in the neck from critics following last week’s big loss to the under-manned Roosters.

They delivered in spades.

Down 16-0, they could have easily thrown in the towel and slid to another inglorious defeat.

But instead they dug deep to complete their biggest comeback in seven years.

Ponga, as is normally the case, was again the difference in a typically classy display.

“It’s hurts, definitely. They (the players) do care,” O’Brien said of the criticism.

“There was no shortage of people that had an opinion on what sort of character we have, but we brought that on ourselves.

“But this is only one game. It’s not going to go away (the questions over character).

“There’s still a lot for us to get better at.”

News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom