Strange spearheads Raiders win

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Canberra Raiders v Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles

Ethan Strange has turned out a stellar second half to take the game away from Manly and deliver the Raiders a much needed win for their hunt of the Minor Premiership.

Manly started the game very strongly and even looked like they could put in the sort of performance to score a shock victory, but the Raiders lifted another gear in the last half hour of the game to comfortably win.

Manly scored after three minutes when coming off their own line, sent the ball to the left to Tolutau Koula who raced 60 metres before kicking back in field, which bounced perfectly for Tom Trbojevic who scored under the posts. Reuben Garrick converted.

7 minutes later the Raiders finally worked their way back into the game and got a just reward when Ethan Strange ran on the left edge, dummied past the out-of-position Daly Cherry-Evans, who weakly tried to grab Strange instead of tackle him, to no avail, and Strange scored a good solo try. Jamal Fogarty converted.

Less than 2 minutes later the Raiders took the lead when they spread the ball right to Kaeo Weekes, who hit the gap between Manly's last two edge defenders, passed to Matthew Timoko who headed to the line before being tackled, but still got a good ball away to Xavier Savage who scored in the corner. Fogarty failed to convert from the sideline.

Weekes was sent to the sin bin in the 18th minute for holding back Luke Brooks from chasing a kick. Manly's attack in this period looked panicked, unstructured and proved to be ineffective.

In the final minute of the half both Jamal Fogarty and Daly Cherry-Evans had really poor attempts at kicking a two-point field goal, both shots nowhere near close to their designated target. At the break Canberra held a 4 point lead.

Manly opened the scoring in the second half when Luke Brooks dished a great ball to Koula, who stepped back in-field twice, beating three defenders before diving over to score a good try. Garrick converted to give Manly a 2 point lead.

Just as he did in the first half, Ethan Strange scored almost immediately after Manly put a try on the board. This time, backed himself, straightened his run off a big left foot step, brushed off Tom Trbojevic and scored a great solo try. Fogarty converted.

From the restart Canberra went right back on the attack and late in the set, Jed Stuart made a short break before getting an insane flick pass around a defender, who was taking him into touch. The pass found Strange in support who strolled in to score. Fogarty converted.

Canberra put the match beyond doubt when Sebastian kris cleaned up a stray pass from Jazz Tevaga and raced 45 metres to score untouched under the posts. Fogarty converted to give Canberra a 28-12 victory.