by Shane Branch

Looking forward to playing rugby week in week out, a stronger and more resolute Raiders team travelled to Barlow Park to take on last year’s premiers.

This was a determined Raiders outfit restarting their stop start season.

A timely speech by life member and long term president Don Murday for newcomers and stalwarts alike invigorated the pride in the jumper and what team and club really means. This set a tone taken from the warm-up and onto the park.

This was a performance that would rate in the best for the club in the past two seasons. From the kick off received by player’s player Phil 'Meat-Tray' Stewart it was clear that the Raiders were on their game and in control of possession and territory.
 
Within ten minutes the Raiders went wide on a defence that had compressed to combat the forwards' play only for Simon Chic to put the ball back on the inside to Dallas, running a sensational angle to run 22 metres to score under the posts untouched. Grae converted to take the score to 7-0.

Five minutes later, again on the back of a great kick off reception and good forward play, the Raiders were again pressing Barron’s line. After ten or so phases, Simon 'Chica' Chic picked the ball up at the back of the ruck and simply dived through to score adjacent to the posts. The try was not converted but the Raiders led 12-0.

On the back of several silly penalties, Barron pressed the Raiders' line just catching out the sliding defence to score 12-5.

The scrum was working well for the Raiders for the entire match but they had an off day at line out time, something that will be worked on all week, but this was a minor glitch in a half that was all Raiders.

At the 25th minute, again after constant phase play in both the backs and the forwards, the Raiders found themselves pressing Barron’s line again and in almost the exact same spot Chica, off a pass from the base of the ruck five metres out, flew over the line to score the third Raiders' try, again converted by Grae Gilbert to bring the score to 19-5.

Not finished yet, in a very dominate first half of rugby the Raiders received a free kick five metres from Barron’s line and Adam Calcraft (now skipper after Chica had left the field with an injury) took it quickly, catching a sleeping defence and crashed over to score, converted by Grae 26-5 the half time score.

The second half was a little more of a grind but exceptional and continued defence kept the opposition out. The half remained scoreless up until the last 12 minutes when James 'Joombie' crossed to score under the posts after ten minutes of sustained pressure by the Raiders' forwards and backs. The try was converted 33-5.

The Raiders spent much of the last half of the game defending their line, and with two minutes to go, and after an extended injury break, the Port team made their first bad decision of the day.

Rather than keeping the ball tight they let the ball go wide and on the back of a handling error Barron scored in the corner, a try which they converted. The final score was 33 -12.

This weekend's game against Southside will define the Raiders' season in a very tight competition, a five point win is the obvious goal in Atherton this coming Saturday.