Douglas Reef Raiders’ loss to JCU at Atherton on Saturday has left the team in no doubt as to what the near future holds: hard work and a step back to the basics.

A standardised training regime will also need to be implemented with some players having to do some extra fitness work to get up to standard.

The 35-7 final score does flatter the opposition as Port slumped into some clumsy attacking play and a poor defensive pattern in the last 25 minutes of the game, letting JCU bolt from a 7-7 score line, with the game in the balance, to a blow-out, five tries to one.

With eight to ten players turning up for the past three training sessions and only 15 players on the bus to Atherton (including one in a cast and two players coming back from injury, facing their first game in six months), team spirit was typical of the Raiders: confident. But perhaps this was ambitious of the underdone players, who have also had a start-stop season with a game one week and a bye the next.

Arriving at the ground, the numbers issue was eased with two players having driven up themselves, but complicated by the need of three players to run on for the Tablelands to shore up their numbers.

The A-grade game saw the Raiders dominate the front end of the first half with strong attacking raids and a solid kicking game. Despite this, JCU scored somewhat against the run of play with the first try converted.

Port struck straight back with quick thinking from Chica who took a quick tap running through the opposition, and hearing a call from Grae Gilbert, kicked through for him to regather and score adjacent to the posts with Grae converting. This was the last points scored in the stanza, the halftime time score 7 all.

The game see-sawed back and forth in the first quarter of the second half with JCU playing a dominating kicking game, ensuring they played the game at the right end of the field, pressuring errors from the Raiders’ attack and defence.

From the 15th minute of the half, the Raiders’ ascendancy waned. JCU fielded all eight reserves and sailed home with literally a wet sail in the very damp conditions of the weekend.

Players’ player was Grant Payne playing out of position at fullback; the two points went to Grae Gilbert and the one point to Phil “Meat Tray” Stewart.

There are no games over Easter so training is essential for the Raiders, who need to lift for Barron the following weekend.