Toyota Cup out to continue winning waysThe Canberra Raiders Toyota Cup side will be aiming for their fifth straight victory against the 14th placed Manly Sea Eagles this Sunday at Brookvale Oval.
Talent is no question for the second placed Raiders, something knows too well Coach Andrew Dunemann will be sternly stressing that his young side not drop their bundle by thinking that the game will be a walk in the park.
“Without a doubt we don’t want to be getting too far ahead of ourselves,” Dunemann said.
“I believe that’s our biggest hurdle that we’ve got in front of us. We don’t want to be falling in love with ourselves and start thinking that we’re just going to go out there and do it.”
“I was watching the Manly and Bulldogs game from last week and I think that the Bulldogs just thought victory was going to happen and they didn’t show enough respect to Manly.”
The Green Machine is arguably the form team in the competition after last week disposing of the Cronulla Sharks 54-12, the same side that thumped Manly 78-10 in Round 3.
Manly is a different team now and have improved their game dramatically in the last two rounds, beating the Gold Coast Titans 28-24 and drawing with the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 28 all.
Much improvement has been derived from the elevation of several highly talented SG Ball graduates after Manly were knocked out in the semi finals of the Under 18s competition.
“Something seems to have clicked for them; they’re a lot better than what they were at the start of the year.”
“I don’t think you can read too much into their start to the year or that particular game against Cronulla. Manly are improving weekly and they’re starting to gel a bit better.”
“Their under 18s had a very good team full of a lot of talented players. That has possibly added to them in the past few weeks. They seem to have some new players in there that are giving them a boost.”
“That adds a bit of unpredictability to their side as we don’t know what to expect. Any time you bring someone up from a lower grade I think they add enthusiasm. I’ve been talking to a few people about their under 18s and they’ve got a couple of exceptional talents in there.”
Captain Mitchell Cornish has set the Toyota Cup alight with his form so far this season and registered a hat-trick of tries against the Sharks last weekend. The side’s attacking options have evolved in recent weeks and opened up more opportunities for Cornish’s lethal running game.
“Taking the line on has never been an issue for Mitch but over the last few weeks our support around the ball has opened up a lot of opportunities for Mitch and others. It’s been the biggest reason why we’ve turned around our lackluster performance against the Tigers and why we’ve been good the last four weeks.
Whenever you’ve got that push through support with bodies in motion you’ll be hard to beat against anyone at any level.”
Cornish will come up against another quality playmaker in Josh Drinkwater. Drinkwater has represented NSW at a junior level and has had a taste of senior level rugby league in the NSW Cup.
“I rate him highly. I’ve saw him a couple of years ago play against Newcastle in the Under 18s and I thought he was a good player. He’s got a good kicking game and a good passing game. Just watching tapes of their games, he’s the focus of their team; the one that does most of their kicking and get’s the ball the majority of the time when he wants it. It’ll be a good match up.”
The game kicks off this Sunday at 11:45am at Brookvale Oval.
Source: Raiders
Topic: Raiders Out to Continue Winning Ways Against Struggling Sea Eagles
