Young Raiders run away victors against CowboysThe Canberra Raiders under 20s side bounced back from two consecutive losses to defeat the North Queensland Cowboys 42-18 on Monday evening in an entertaining match at the Canberra Stadium.
The Green Machine came into the match eager to impress in front of their home crowd after losing their previous two games against the Roosters and the Tigers and fans that turned up early for the fixture were not disappointed with the junior Raiders putting in an impressive attacking display, running in eight tries to the Cowboys’ three.
The Raiders were the stronger side throughout the match; however, the Cowboys were the first on the board when forward Nathan Norford crashed over under the posts giving the visitors a 6-0 lead after five minutes.
The Raiders struck back though not two minutes later when a slick passing movement down the left hand flank caught the Cowboys defence short and allowed big centre Edrick Lee to cross out wide. Five eighth Mitch Cornish slotted the conversion from the touch line and the scores were level at 6 all.
The Raiders scored again in the 16th minute after, on the back of consecutive sets, big second rower Joe Bradley crossed after running onto a well timed pass from Cornish close to the line. Unfortunately, Cornish’s conversion attempt hit the post giving the Raiders a 4 point lead.
The Cowboys monetarily took the lead 12-10 in the 23rd minute when Chris Grevsmuhl scored a converted try. However, the Raiders snatched the lead back 10 minutes later when Jack Ahearn scored adjacent to the posts after fooling the Cowboys defence with a cheeky dummy close to the line, which after Cornish’s conversion gave the Raiders a 16-12 lead.
The Green Machine further extended that advantage just before half time, when off the back of scrum win 40 metres out from the Cowboys line, winger Malcolm Congoo used his blistering speed to outpace the Cowboys cover defence and score out near the left hand touch line. Cornish’s conversion attempted was waved away and at the break the Raiders led 20-12
The Raiders were the first to score in the second half when in the 47th minute when Lee used a combination of strength and speed to once again bust his way through the Cowboys defence, setting up Congoo for his second try. The Raiders were in again three minutes later when a deft little kick from dummy half by interchange Josh Mitchell allowed Ahearn to cross for his second try of the evening and opened up a 20 point lead for the Green Machine with half an hour left in the contest.
Cowboys lock Tennyson Elliot gave the visitors a glimmer of hope when he crossed under the posts in the 60th minute to close the gap to 14 points, however, the Raiders sealed the victory during the last quarter of the match, scoring two quick tries through Cornish and Bradley to open up a 24 point advantage, while also shutting down a series of promising attacking raids by the Cowboys with some great displays of scrambling defence.
Raiders coach Andrew Dunemann was impressed with the win, however, he felt that his team needed to sharpen up their defence a bit more.
“The boys really showed some ticker,” Dunemann said “We were sharp with the footy and had some decent defence sets at times, but we still let in a couple of soft tries ... our defence is going to have to improve a lot if we want to beat the Warriors next week,”
Best for the Raiders were halfback Mitchell Cronin and back rowers Joe Bradley and Michael Chee-Kam. Cronin steered his team around the park well in attack throughout the afternoon while Bradley and Chee-Kam certainly held their own against a couple of the NYC’s gun second rowers in Jason Tuamalolo and Chris Grevsmuhl.
Source: Raiders
Topic: Toyota Cup Raiders Destroy Junior Cowboys
