Raiders down Titans to keep finals hopes alive

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Gold Coast Titans v Canberra Raiders

The Canberra Raiders have maintained touch with the top eight, outlasting the Gold Coast Titans 36-24 on Saturday Afternoon at CBus Super Stadium.

The Raiders had a golden start to the match, taking young winger Jojo Fifita into touch inside two minutes. They were unable to take advantage of their first opportunity, but a Fermor error gifted them another one, and Jack Wighton put Timoko through a gaping hole off the scrum win, the centre going in untouched. 

Both sides exchanged errors before the Titans got a penalty for an illegal strip, going on the attack. They were able to level the scores courtesy of a Tanah Boyd grubber kick that found Brian Kelly, the centre scoring in his return to first grade.

The Titans looked to have taken the lead after Aaron Booth's grubber was chased through by Beau Fermor, but replays showed the back rower had knocked on in-goal. 

The Raiders turned that into a 12-point turnaround, finding some room on the left side of the field and  executing a perfect inside outside play, Elliott Whitehead passing to Nick Cotric, who did well to get to the line. 

Canberra would soon get back into attacking position through a penalty and a set restart. The Titans looked to be doing well to hold them out initially, but Nick Cotric would eventually get over for a double from dummy-half, running right past Phil Sami in the process. 

The Raiders took exception to a late tackle around the legs from Aaron Booth, Tapine defending himself by throwing a few punches. The bunker found nothing wrong with the contact from Booth and sent Tapine packing for 10 as a result.

The Titans took advantage of the extra man in the shadows of half time, Tanah Boyd again heavily involved, the crafty five-eighth going from dummy half and finding a huge gap. The conversion meant the score was 16-12 in favour of th Green at the break. 

The second half was basically all one way traffic in favour of the away side. Canberra scored two quick tries inside 5 minutes, the first one after Sexton got clean bowled by Fogarty's kick and Hudson Young was there to clean up, the second after Wighton broke a tackle, offloaded to Young, who flicked it out to Kris, who pinned the ears back and scored to make it a 14-point lead. 

The Titans showed some signs of life 6 minutes later, with Beau Fermor breaking two tackles before showing great composure to find Jayden Campbell on the inside. 

The Raiders would put the result beyond doubt in the 66th minute though. A successful captains challenge set them up for an attacking raid, and Joe Tapine showed great strength to stay upright in the tackle before reaching out to plant it down on the line. 

A late left side shift to Seb Kris made the scoreline 36-18, before a late consolation try from the Titans made it a little more respectable. 

Next week, the Titans play the Storm away from home in another tough game, while the Raiders will host an understrength Panthers outfit in a game they'll give themselves a huge chance of winning.