Raiders revival leaves Knights heartbroken

v BYE

The Canberra Raiders have left the Newcastle Knights heartbroken after a miraculous 29-25 golden point victory in front just under 10,000 at a bitterly cold GIO Stadium.

The Knights stunned the Raiders early despite having their line tested early on when Sione Mata'utia got the advantage of a tap back and put it a superman leap to get the try and put the lead in favour of the Knights early. The Knights kept their hot touch going when Korbin Sims rampaged over the top of Jack Wighton to score.

The Knights held the honour of the flukiest try in 2016 for 65 minutes after Jake Mamo scored after outjumping the Raiders defence to get the ball down but the story of the try was more surrounding that it was set up by three kicks, the first was ruled not played at by Canberra and regathered by the Knights who put in a second kick which Tyler Randall then kicked ahead as the ball was coming down and Mamo pounced and scored to take the score out to 16-0.

Peter Mata'utia then took advantage of the injury effected right side of the Raiders and scored and after a pinpoint kick from Trent Hodkinson the Knights then lead 22-0 until just before halftime when the Knights defence fell for Blake Austin's magic feet and the score went to 22-6 at the break.

Soon after the Knights took a penalty goal to go out to 24-6 but that was it for the points for the red and blue and the Knights became their own worst enemy giving momentum to the Raiders after good attacking raids.

The Raiders got the first of their comeback tries in the 52^nd minute when the Knights couldn't handle the Green Machine magic before Jarrod Croker scored the next two tries to bring the scores level the first was when he poked through a gap the second came when he outjumped some lazy defenders to score and after a simple kick scores were level.

The Raiders cracked the field goal in the 79###sup

minute leaving the Knights 54 seconds to get a field goal and Trent Hodkinson did that with a sweet snap and sent us to golden point.###>

Both sides tried field goals and all missed until Blake Austin stepped up in the last seconds of the first half of golden point when he struck a wobbly field goal that clearly missed but the ball bounced back on its point for a steaming Jordan Rapana to embarrass two Knights defenders to get to the ball and score.

Next weekend Canberra get the advantage of playing a starless Cowboys side whilst the task gets tougher for the Knights with a clash against the bye then the Storm.