Canberra Raiders kept their finals hopes alive with a 26-14 win against New Zealand Warriors on Saturday afternoon at Canberra Stadium.
The Raiders scored 26 unanswered points in the second half in a wild second half to register back-to-back wins and keep themselves in the hunt for the top eight headed into the final six weeks of the NRL competition.
In the first half, the Raiders looked anything but the side that knocked over the Storm last week. Warriors came out full of purpose and dominated the first 10 minutes of the contest and didn't allow the hosts to touch the ball.
Jack Murchie crawled his way over for the opener then a huge kick from Daejarn Asi gave the Warriors position. The five-eighth then sliced through himself to build up a 12-nil lead for the visitors as they raced the clock.
Shaun Johnson piloted home a 40-metre penalty goal to put their advantage past two scores. Warriors were good value for their lead at the break with some wonderful scramble defence which repelled the Raiders several times on their goal-line.
Coming out of the break, the Raiders needed to step up and enter Jack Wighton. The representative five-eighth kicked two 40/20s which turned the tide of the contest and got the faithful involved.
His first within the first set of the restart allowed Albert Hopoate to dive over from some strong Matt Timoko work to make it 14-4. The second was enough to put the Raiders into the lead when Corey Haerea-Naera steamed over from a short ball.
Haerea-Narea was a force whenever he got the ball coming off the bench. He made it a double when an airswing from Chanel Harris-Tavita left the ball prone for him to slam down alongside Sebastian Kris between the interchange mans two tries were enough tonight.
Raiders kept ticking the scoreboard over late in the contest. Fogarty who was solid from the tee after his first miss and sent through a pair of penalty goals which pushed the margin to a dozen and a valuable win for the Green Machine.
Warriors must be thinking how they let this game slip from 14 points up. They failed to fire a shot in the second half and the late interjection of Reece Walsh was reduced to the utility having to repeatedly kick the ball from under the posts due to the Raiders pressure.