The Wests Tigers dismal recent record against the Canberra Raiders has continued in the nation's capital where the Raiders came away with a 20-12 win, thanks to a brilliant first half.
The first half looked very ominous for the Tigers as the hosts were scoring better than a point per minute after 10 minutes.
In just the third minute of the game, Canberra opened the scoring with a soft try to Dunamis Lui, who ran a good line through the middle and stormed over for a try under the posts. Jarrod Croker converted.
6 minutes later and the Raiders were over again, this time it came after Aidan Sezer grubbered back in-field toward the posts, where the Tigers have no-one home and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad pounced on the loose ball for a good try. Croker again added the extras.
Half chances for Paul Momirovski and Chris Lawrence both went the way of the home side. But it was a case of third time lucky for the Tigers, thanks to a Raiders drop out that didn't travel 10 metres.
The Tigers got on the board in the 18th minute when Robbie Farah sent a sharp pass from dummy half to Josh Aloiai close to the line and the big prop strolled over for a soft try next to the posts. Moses Mbye converted.
On the third tackle after the restart the Tigers knocked on. From the ensuing set Sezer sent a brilliant cut-out pass to Jordan Rapana who scored in the right corner. Croker slotted the sideline conversion.
Just three minutes late the Raiders received a penalty and Croker opted to take the two. He kicked the gift two-pointer to give his side a 20-6 lead after 25 minutes.
The rest of the half was dominated by a combination of poor last tackle options, poor kicks or poor mistakes, with neither side getting the upper hand.
The second half was more of a grind, despite starting with the Tigers bagging an early try after just 3 minutes. Benji Marshall received the ball on the left, switched back to the short side, passes and then received a pass in the space of 2 seconds, before throwing a ball to David Nofoaluma, who scored a good try in the corner. Mbye added the extras to reduce the deficit to 8.
Elijah Taylor was denied a try in the 50th minute when the bunker ruled that Momirovski had knocked on.
With three minutes remaining, the Tigers had another try disallowed by the bunker when it was ruled that Nofoaluma passed the ball after his ball carrying arm had hit the ground while Croker was still holding him, before he flicked a pass back in-field.