Young guns firing for Raiders26 June 2011, 2:33 pmThe emergence of Josh McCrone and rookie Sam Williams as an NRL-quality halves pairing could not have come quickly enough for Canberra.
With star signing Matt Orford and regular number six Terry Campese both missing, the duo stepped up to guide the Raiders to a 25-12 win over Parramatta on Saturday at Canberra Stadium.
Williams scored a double for the Raiders while McCrone added a late field goal to his own four-pointer in the much-needed win.
"I think we're starting to find that form and that rhythm with each other," Williams said of his partnership with McCrone.
"It was always going to take a bit of time to gel and we probably hadn't been performing to the best of our abilities."
Despite their key role, McCrone refused to give all the credit for the victory to the two young halves.
"Tonight it really worked well but that was on the back of a massive performance by our forwards," he said.
"It was only a matter of time before we started clicking."
Most impressively, the Raiders appeared to have learnt the lesson after poor ball control in the first half of their 25-24 golden point loss to Brisbane two weeks ago proved costly.
On Saturday night, the Raiders left the Eels scoreless in the first half with a 90 per cent completion rate.
"You've only got to look at last week in that first half we were 50 per cent," McCrone said of the poor handling against the Broncos.
"We were never in the game.
"Second half we came out and we were 90 per cent or something and we put 24 points on them. We knew if we complete and defend well we'd go close to coming away with a win."
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AAPSource: Tag: Rugby League - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Topic: Young guns firing for Raiders
