Canberra Raiders team for 2024

[Billy Walker]

Nobody is really putting him in there team but i really think ricky will be putting hoppa in the team. I think the reasoning will be he does a lot of hit ups in the middle and that will keep our gun forward pack fresher.I dont want him there i want savage cause we need points

I agree. If we also have Rapana and Cotric in the back 3 somewhere, we have yards already. Throw in Timoko who plays like a bull and Kris who will take tough runs and do it well. We just don't need another dump truck. We need something sportier.

Cotric hasn't really delivered recently in the yardage game. Hoppa is far better in this area. I don't necessarily think it's a battle between Savage and Hoppa either. IMO Rapana is the best winger on our books followed by Savage. Cotric and Hoppa bother have thier strengths but they are 3rd or 4th string in our current squad for mine. Savage is a certainty for our round 1 team imo with Cotric and Hoppa battling for the other wing spot.

I agree and I’ve got Hoppa ahead of Crabric

[LimeGreenMachine]

Looming Roosters revival we can’t ignore; Broncos’ ominous sign: Early NRL Power Rankings

15. CANBERRA RAIDERS

Analysis: The Raiders surprised everybody to make the finals last season despite a horror points differential, but the loss of their best player in Jack Wighton could prove difficult to overcome. Ethan Strange and Kaeo Weekes will bid to fill the Wighton void and how they manage the task could make or break the Raiders’ season. Ricky Stuart would have been buoyed by their 38-16 win over the Eels in the trials, but some bad habits returned in their 36-26 loss to the Cowboys and they need to address their leaky defence if they want to compete for the finals in 2024. They get a tough test first up against the Knights, who have only lost once in their last 12 NRL games

Read more: https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-pr ... 0dbeb53d6e

[LimeGreenMachine]

Its obvious they just looked at the score , they didnt factor the circumstances of how and when the points were scored.

[Shiv]

I thought it was obvious that they had done no research when they wrote the sentence
“Losing their best player Jack Wighton”….


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[Seiffert82]

More appalling, lazy content from Foxsports

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[Neeeegz]

I thought it was obvious that they had done no research when they wrote the sentence
“Losing their best player Jack Wighton”….


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Exactly right, we should be more consistent without Jack trying to lose games for us.

[Raiders_Pat]

Looming Roosters revival we can’t ignore; Broncos’ ominous sign: Early NRL Power Rankings

15. CANBERRA RAIDERS

Analysis: The Raiders surprised everybody to make the finals last season despite a horror points differential, but the loss of their best player in Jack Wighton could prove difficult to overcome. Ethan Strange and Kaeo Weekes will bid to fill the Wighton void and how they manage the task could make or break the Raiders’ season. Ricky Stuart would have been buoyed by their 38-16 win over the Eels in the trials, but some bad habits returned in their 36-26 loss to the Cowboys and they need to address their leaky defence if they want to compete for the finals in 2024. They get a tough test first up against the Knights, who have only lost once in their last 12 NRL games

Read more: https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-pr ... 0dbeb53d6e

I just don't see us finishing bottom four. I think we end somewhere in the 9th to 12th bracket and honestly wouldn't be surprised if we if we finished as high as 8th again. I do think this will be a result of Ricky going too conservative with blooding some of the younger guys though. I would rather sacrifice our ladder position to give some of these younger guys a good run this year.

[-PJ-]

I’d like to ask the editor which bad habits returned during the trial loss to the Cows.

[gangrenous]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

[Botman]

I dont know that Cotric did that because he didnt know the rule... more a lack of awareness, didnt seem to know where he was relative to the dead ball line until late and then mistimed his adjustment

i must say that sort of stuff drives me crazy, to me it makes much more sense for designated deep kick "catchers" to stand ON the dead ball line at kick off, and then it's easy, as you track the ball, you're either coming forward and you know you can take it confidently or you're standing still/going backwards and you know its going dead

[-PJ-]

I wonder what our ranking may have been with a 2nd trial win and what the expert would have said about our 2024 chances.

Anyway, it’s on next week and as per usual we’ll rock up and dig in.

[Coastalraider]

I dont know that Cotric did that because he didnt know the rule... more a lack of awareness, didnt seem to know where he was relative to the dead ball line until late and then mistimed his adjustment

i must say that sort of stuff drives me crazy, to me it makes much more sense for designated deep kick "catchers" to stand ON the dead ball line at kick off, and then it's easy, as you track the ball, you're either coming forward and you know you can take it confidently or you're standing still/going backwards and you know its going dead

Agree.

There are consistently a number of ‘attention to detail’ errors during a raiders season. Drop out systems, offside at kickoffs, dead ball errors, what to do for field goals etc.

[bonehead]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

not throwing the simple match tieing pass to the unmarked support, rather the worst kick in the world (Adam Cook)

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[Botman]

I dont know that Cotric did that because he didnt know the rule... more a lack of awareness, didnt seem to know where he was relative to the dead ball line until late and then mistimed his adjustment

i must say that sort of stuff drives me crazy, to me it makes much more sense for designated deep kick "catchers" to stand ON the dead ball line at kick off, and then it's easy, as you track the ball, you're either coming forward and you know you can take it confidently or you're standing still/going backwards and you know its going dead

Agree.

There are consistently a number of ‘attention to detail’ errors during a raiders season. Drop out systems, offside at kickoffs, dead ball errors, what to do for field goals etc.

The other annoying thing is... you dont have to catch the football, just touch it... if you're standing on the dead ball line, its so much easy to set a long base with a foot on the line and touch the football. If you're back pedalling thats very hard to do and very easy to **** up, as we saw with Cotric.
I commented last year that i thought we were the worst coached team as it related to fundamentals and attention to detail things... and nothing in the trials gave me a great deal of confidence that has changed.

But it was trials, so the proof in the pudding is in the eating. We'll start to see what that looks like in a week

[LimeGreenMachine]

I dont know that Cotric did that because he didnt know the rule... more a lack of awareness, didnt seem to know where he was relative to the dead ball line until late and then mistimed his adjustment

i must say that sort of stuff drives me crazy, to me it makes much more sense for designated deep kick "catchers" to stand ON the dead ball line at kick off, and then it's easy, as you track the ball, you're either coming forward and you know you can take it confidently or you're standing still/going backwards and you know its going dead

you don't even have to catch the ball. stand on the dead ball line and get a finger to the ball. it drives me nuts , a simple mistake.

[Bluesbrother]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

[dubby]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Exactly.

We were all over the Cows (who played arguably their best side), without Tapine, Rapa, Hors, Kris, and they only just managed to beat our B side?

[The Nickman]

Yeah, nice analysis, gangy.

[President Clinton]

It’s shaping to be an interesting season for mine.

A lot of games are won in the middle of the field. If we roll out Tapine, Hors, Young, Papalii, Smithies, Mariota we have a good to chance out muscle most sides and then match it with the best.

Throw in Kris, Timoko and Rapana in the outside backs… maybe Cotric finds some form.

I think we will surprise a few.

[Coastalraider]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Exactly.

We were all over the Cows (who played arguably their best side), without Tapine, Rapa, Hors, Kris, and they only just managed to beat our B side?

I don’t think anyone is arguing this.

But a top flight team looks at that and says - we did well, and here’s xxx details we can improve.

We can:
-do a team session on how to approach dead ball line/side line behaviour.
-continue to explore, workshop and implement xx red zone options.
-continue (I’m sure this is already happening in some level) to drill behaviour around edge decoy runners and defensive line width.

Accepting ‘nearly good enough’ will seem performance to remain in the nearly zone.

[-PJ-]

Some basic skills are still letting the side down and in general it’s easy common everyday stuff.

Is it fatigue or drops in concentration ?

It’s frustrating. It’s nearly always on the back of scoring points as well.

It swings momentum and turns a dominant attacking phase into instant defence.

[gerg]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Exactly.

We were all over the Cows (who played arguably their best side), without Tapine, Rapa, Hors, Kris, and they only just managed to beat our B side?

I don’t think anyone is arguing this.

But a top flight team looks at that and says - we did well, and here’s xxx details we can improve.

We can:
-do a team session on how to approach dead ball line/side line behaviour.
-continue to explore, workshop and implement xx red zone options.
-continue (I’m sure this is already happening in some level) to drill behaviour around edge decoy runners and defensive line width.

Accepting ‘nearly good enough’ will seem performance to remain in the nearly zone.

While we're talking about traits (mistakes) not being corrected. I'm concerned we'll start well vKnights and be on top, only to be run down in the last twenty minutes through lack of match fitness. There's a reason a lot of the other teams left their starters on for 50-60 minutes last weekend.

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[Bluesbrother]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Exactly.

We were all over the Cows (who played arguably their best side), without Tapine, Rapa, Hors, Kris, and they only just managed to beat our B side?

I don’t think anyone is arguing this.

But a top flight team looks at that and says - we did well, and here’s xxx details we can improve.

We can:
-do a team session on how to approach dead ball line/side line behaviour.
-continue to explore, workshop and implement xx red zone options.
-continue (I’m sure this is already happening in some level) to drill behaviour around edge decoy runners and defensive line width.

Accepting ‘nearly good enough’ will seem performance to remain in the nearly zone.

I don't think it's accepting anything. You always try and improve, even if you win by 50. It's just calling it for what it was rather than fabricating the truth to push an agenda.

[dubby]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Exactly.

We were all over the Cows (who played arguably their best side), without Tapine, Rapa, Hors, Kris, and they only just managed to beat our B side?

I don’t think anyone is arguing this.

But a top flight team looks at that and says - we did well, and here’s xxx details we can improve.

We can:
-do a team session on how to approach dead ball line/side line behaviour.
-continue to explore, workshop and implement xx red zone options.
-continue (I’m sure this is already happening in some level) to drill behaviour around edge decoy runners and defensive line width.

Accepting ‘nearly good enough’ will seem performance to remain in the nearly zone.

I'm pretty sure this happens every week

[gangrenous]

I dont know that Cotric did that because he didnt know the rule... more a lack of awareness, didnt seem to know where he was relative to the dead ball line until late and then mistimed his adjustment

i must say that sort of stuff drives me crazy, to me it makes much more sense for designated deep kick "catchers" to stand ON the dead ball line at kick off, and then it's easy, as you track the ball, you're either coming forward and you know you can take it confidently or you're standing still/going backwards and you know its going dead

Agree.

There are consistently a number of ‘attention to detail’ errors during a raiders season. Drop out systems, offside at kickoffs, dead ball errors, what to do for field goals etc.

The other annoying thing is... you dont have to catch the football, just touch it... if you're standing on the dead ball line, its so much easy to set a long base with a foot on the line and touch the football. If you're back pedalling thats very hard to do and very easy to **** up, as we saw with Cotric.
I commented last year that i thought we were the worst coached team as it related to fundamentals and attention to detail things... and nothing in the trials gave me a great deal of confidence that has changed.

But it was trials, so the proof in the pudding is in the eating. We'll start to see what that looks like in a week

This is what I meant by not knowing the rule. I agree that what happened was Cotric messing up his whereabouts rather than thinking he could catch it then put his foot out for it to count

I mean that if you know the rules properly you shouldn’t be positioning yourself in that way to begin with.

Raiders would basically only get this penalty when the ball is going to clear the dead ball line itself. Anything that lands within 1.5m of the dead ball line players should be looking to execute the play you mention. One foot behind and then just looking to touch.

Same with the rolling ball and the sideline. Or bombs near the sideline.

Or basically any time a player is juggling the ball forget tackling them. Just slap the ball before they regain control.

[gangrenous]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Remind me how the first try was scored against the A team?

Exactly the same way? The same way I recall being exploited last season? Oh that’s interesting isn’t it? Almost like it might be structural rather than able to be blamed on the b team?

Crash ball tactics had nothing to do with the b team

Not knowing the rules came from a long time A team player.

So yeah. Dismiss my points as being down to the B team if you want. But that’s horse ****.

[Bluesbrother]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Remind me how the first try was scored against the A team?

Exactly the same way? The same way I recall being exploited last season? Oh that’s interesting isn’t it? Almost like it might be structural rather than able to be blamed on the b team?

Crash ball tactics had nothing to do with the b team

Not knowing the rules came from a long time A team player.

So yeah. Dismiss my points as being down to the B team if you want. But that’s horse poop.

You speak as though no tries are going to be let in. In rugby league that's ridiculous. Drink Drinkwater delivered an absolute peach of a pass that was straight out of the top drawer. As a team, you can cop those ones. Sure, you work on it, but you aren't going to stop every single try when you're playing against such elite attacking players.

Across the 2 trials I saw more movement of the ball than I did at any stage last season. Did I see crash balls close to the line? Yes. Was it improved, yes it was. We had a lot more attack across those 2 games.

As for Cotric not knowing the rules. I'd say he knows the rules but he made a mistake. So what?

If you're searching for a perfect football game, you won't find it. At any club.

[Seiffert82]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Exactly.

We were all over the Cows (who played arguably their best side), without Tapine, Rapa, Hors, Kris, and they only just managed to beat our B side?

Yeah, I'm not sure what the reporters thought they were watching. 80 percent of our side out there in the second half will barely get a sniff of First Grade this season. What happened was completely irrelevant.

Yet despite playing a man down for 10 minutes, consistently turning the ball over and being clueless in defence on the edges we were one decent kick away from actually winning the game.

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[The Nickman]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Remind me how the first try was scored against the A team?

Exactly the same way? The same way I recall being exploited last season? Oh that’s interesting isn’t it? Almost like it might be structural rather than able to be blamed on the b team?

Crash ball tactics had nothing to do with the b team

Not knowing the rules came from a long time A team player.

So yeah. Dismiss my points as being down to the B team if you want. But that’s horse ****.

Some more nice analysis there.

[gangrenous]

I’ll have a go for the editor:
* overly compressed defensive line allowing wingers to go around untouched.
* throwing excessive crash balls in good position
* not knowing the rules of the game and putting a foot over the dead ball line after catching it.

So a few errors were made when our B grade side was on against what should be a top 4 team? Nice analysis.

We were 14-8 up at half time at which point our guns were taken off. Some before this. Some werent even playing. Cowboys kept thier elite team on the park and still only beat us by 10.

Remind me how the first try was scored against the A team?

Exactly the same way? The same way I recall being exploited last season? Oh that’s interesting isn’t it? Almost like it might be structural rather than able to be blamed on the b team?

Crash ball tactics had nothing to do with the b team

Not knowing the rules came from a long time A team player.

So yeah. Dismiss my points as being down to the B team if you want. But that’s horse poop.

You speak as though no tries are going to be let in. In rugby league that's ridiculous. Drink Drinkwater delivered an absolute peach of a pass that was straight out of the top drawer. As a team, you can cop those ones. Sure, you work on it, but you aren't going to stop every single try when you're playing against such elite attacking players.

Across the 2 trials I saw more movement of the ball than I did at any stage last season. Did I see crash balls close to the line? Yes. Was it improved, yes it was. We had a lot more attack across those 2 games.

As for Cotric not knowing the rules. I'd say he knows the rules but he made a mistake. So what?

If you're searching for a perfect football game, you won't find it. At any club.

No, I don’t speak like that at all. I’m not concerned about one try. I’m concerned about 4 tries being scored in near identical fashion and from memory 2 more that Feldt dropped. Not in isolation, but building on something I consider a weakness already in play last year. You can dismiss it if you like, Ricky will.

I didn’t see an attacking structure to write home about. I’ll be excited if we open up the attacking game plan this year, but I won’t hold my breath.

If those kind of errors from Cotric were occasional and largely down to execution it wouldn’t be frustrating. The issue is that it’s a team wide problem across the last 10 years that the team doesn’t seem to give consideration to the finer points of the rules and play/position themselves to give themselves the best chance of winning games (see not being able to kick a field goal to save their lives as a larger complete dismissal of investment in fundamental parts of the game).