A great win last night, matched by an equally great review penned by our #1 Stalwart KW.

It was a great performance by the mighty green last night, and one that we have now come to expect when they face the Rabbitohs. That’s three straight away wins against the bunnies, no mean feat for a side renowned for travelling poorly. Our day kicked off at 1pm when I collected Loz, Marko and the Tarago (that’s right people, a meagre 8 die-hards made the trip north, another very disappointing turn out). A couple of quick stops later and we were on our way North (only 7 minutes after the scheduled departure time, a new RA record). In a not to be repeated mistake, I had earlier allocated the task of filling the esky to our token eastern European member Melancholy. When we reached Lake George and decided to crack the first brew, it was noted that Marko had actually put the ice in first, the beer on top of the ice and the rum cans on top of the beer. A new low for the 2008 RA member of the year. Making her RA debut was Robynne Earl, mother of former regular Tom (aka Ultra) who has moved to the top end and formed our newest chapter; RANT (RA Northern Territory). Membership of RANT doubled recently when his girlfriend joined up. Exciting times up north.

I decided to drive to the Nest to give Shaw-man a well needed rest as he would be navigating the return leg. First beers were cracked at 3pm, with everyone weary of not hitting the bottle too hard with work commitments the next day. Playing scrabble on the mobile phone has become a popular way to kill time on the drive north, and Loz, Shaw-man, Nick and Marko engaged in an epic 4 way battle. We were all a little concerned how Marko would go considering his lack of English (he was even given a 12.5 point start), but it turns out he goes alright.

It decided to rain when we made our only stop on the venture north at Pheasants Nest. A quick steak and cheese pie later and we were on our way again. Shaw-man took over the drivers seat and preceded to cut off a Toyota Starlet, the driver of which decided to display his disapproval of the maneuver with a one-fingered salute as he overtook us (it must be noted that Shaw-man did an admirable job from here on in trying circumstances). A discussion erupted regarding the Army’s patented “Believe” slogan, with Frank suggesting it be changed to “squiggly smooch”. This is why we encourage you to keep your thoughts to yourself mate. Another classic Frank moment came when we were discussing the Matt Johns affair. Frank brought a cease to the ongoing discussion by announcing in a rather soothing priest like manner “we can argue about it all night but what’s done is done”. Indeed Tank, indeed.

At the Brewery, popular RA identity Rupi produced a wad of free tickets, which were snapped up by the green faithful. Once inside the ground, the small but very vocal crew found their voice, and basically owned the cavernous stadium. It was a special night, with the cameras paying us plenty of attention. They seemed to be singling out Central Coast based regular Marc “beetelejuice” Pooley, as well as another regular in Nick “69” Townsend, who was deliberately holding his scarf upside down for some unknown reason. The banner got plenty of air play and is proving to be a great investment. Even Sean “the” Ferrari joined us for the second half, a rare treat as he normally likes to sit with the white collars on half way. In another RA first, Marko was a tad confused at the ANZ Stadium signage and somehow ended up utilising the ladies toilets instead of the blokes. His sidekick Townsend also fell for the same trap, but realised the error of his ways much earlier in the piece than our lovable Serbian.

As is now customary, the players thanked the fans by embracing them after the game. This is always a great moment and the fans were loving it. We have had some great times at ANZ Stadium and it really is starting to feel like a home away from home.

I must make mention of the efforts of two former RA Heavyweights who have now consigned themselves to the RA Reserves alongside Leethal Leeroy Clayton. Former front liner Boing shunned the pre-game drinks and preceded to view the match from the comfort of a corporate box, only showing his face at the end of the game when the players embraced the Army. Similar to Boing’s disappointing effort, Sydney based veteran Craig ‘Sully” Jensen continued his jekyll & hyde approach to supporting the Raiders in 2009, making only a token appearance at the pre-game before heading to his own corporate box and never to be seen again. A far cry from his normal position, front and centre and leading the Sydney boys into battle. No doubt both gentlemen regret missing out on the scenes of jubilation and frivolity that took place in Aisles 101-103.

Upon exiting the ground and engaging in some friendly banter with sullen faced bunnies’ fans, one particularly unenlightened individual attempted to prove to us that John Sutton deserved to be named man of the match. He was laughed at vigorously. The trip home was a little more relaxed than the usual, Marko decided to kill the atmosphere in the back row by playing trivial pursuit on his mobile for 2 hours (whether or not he actually got a single answer correct remains to be seen). At some stage someone removed basically all of the head rests from their slots and put them in the boot. Not sure why. We stopped off at a servo on King Georges road (again, not sure why) where we bumped into Canberra based journos Tim Gavel and David Packwood. As per every away trip, the under 20s side were at Sutton Forest McDonalds when we arrived there. Marko and I have a new favourite Toyota Cup player, Steve “5 cheeseburgers” Naughton, whose new nickname is pretty self explanatory. Somewhere around the Bungendore turn off we pulled into what we thought was a rest stop, but turned out to be the entrance to a farm who luckily enough were selling Horse Poo for the bargain basement price of $2 a kilo. We couldn’t believe our luck. A short time later we were saying our good byes and thinking ahead to the Sharks home game in two weeks time, and more importantly, our trip to “Fortress Brookvale” on June 21st.

As per usual, there was some lost property reported. Aimee has lost her mobile, anyone with any info should send me an email. (kw@raidersarmy.com)

Until next time, BELIEVE

KW

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To everyone who is about to read this review this is my first time doing this so be gentle

My day began roughly about 11am when I landed in Mexico(Melbourne) after a nice beverage or two I was feeling pretty good. After arriving at my hotel I gave two of the army’s best a call (Nick & Katie) who were in Melbourne at the time.
I met them a pub called “Young & Jackson” if I had known the prices of the drinks down there I would of taken out a loan. The average price for a pint was $9 so going shout for shout was getting expensive but I didn’t care at the time, I was just happy I was on the ground.(I’m not a big fan of flying)

A short time later young Rick James came from work to join us, all four of us were discussing many things from the raiders chances of winning to how Nick is more of a girl cause he did more clothes shopping then Katie. Eventually Nick and Kate had to leave to catch there flight back to their homes in Sydney and young Rick James had to go back to work, as for me I just went around the town sightseeing and bar hoping. Many people were looking at me weird as if they were looking like they have never seen a green jersey in their life. One random local even stopped me in the street to ask me what team it was. [Great to see Rugby League making great inroads down there, it's only been 11 year] After a few hours and a $9 pint or two it was time to rendezvous with Rick James. At about 6:15pm we caught the tram down to the game, it was an interesting moment to say the least when we saw a Richmond fan celebrating when his attempt to throw a water bottle into a bin from a distance missed by only 2 metres, I think that showed just how deeply entrenched the AFL culture is down here..

We arrived there just in time to see the Raiders along with that club s**t Brett Finch run over the athletics track and on to the ground. . As for the stadium it self it looks like a glorified version of Shark Park, it was at this moment I wished KW and the QBN crew were here as this joint had a resemblance to a 1968 version of Seiffert Oval. The match was underway as the ball was taken just inside the 4 metre in goal area. For the first 10 minutes we looked good the when big red scored in the corner there was just me and Rick James cheering and believing that this might be our night, could we finally snap this 13 game losing streak??. But unfortunately that was the last of our celebrations for the night as not long after Billy Slater scored off a Cameron Smith kick and then when big Lima ran straight through the middle of our defence we knew it was going to be a tough night. Half time came about and we weren’t out of the game, but really had to score first if we were any hope of beating these purple wearing News Limited Storm, the fact we were also up against a vocal home crowd would only make our task harder. The second half came along and me and Rick James were still staying through and believing that the Raiders can come back. But when Slater scored his second try of a Alan Tongue grubber deep down we knew it was over. However we refused to give up hope. The Storm then went on a scoring spree and being only two people wearing green in a sea of purple we were starting to cop a bit of stick. To the storm supporters credit most of them were really nice and friendly to us, one of the storm fans shouted out to Hinchcliffe “hey Hinchcliffe you’re playing for a real team now!” even I found the funny side of it.

Full time finally came and me and Rick James made our way to the trams. After getting on I was reminded of how sardines must feel. I finally got off near the pub the Young & Jackson and stopped in for a disappointing pint then made my way back to the hotel for the night.

I hope you enjoyed this read and it was what you expecting to read just remember everyone to still believe and don’t give up hope.

Our next home match is on this Sunday against the Warriors, I encourage everyone who can get to the ground to make the effort and support the boys. Remember people form is temporary and one win can be the trigger that starts something special, you only need to look back at 2008 to see evidence of this.

Cheers,

Frank the Tank

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A special thanks to Ben Ross, who this week stepped up and the now (almost) weekly review. 

After two successive victories , the mighty Canberra Raiders travelled to the Gold Coast in round 6 to take on the Gold Coast Titans at Skilled Park. As an avid Raiders supporter , I took it upon myself to travel up to see the Raiders do battle with the competition leaders. This would be my first time traveling to Q.L.D. , and the longest distance traveled to a Raiders game , surpassing the 2008 effort to Melbourne.

So I was on the 1:10 Virgin airlines flight on the Friday afternoon bound for Coolongatta airport. It was at this that I felt immensely proud to be a Raiders supporter. Every weekend , we as the R.A passionately let it be known that we are mental and mad, and this was never more true. This was no train travel , car ride or a bus trip. This was an interstate flight traveling thousands of metres above sea level to watch the Canberra Raiders play for 80 mins. Thats how I was looking at it.

About an hour or so had passed and I had arrived at Coolongatta airport at 2:10. Having only flown once before , I was suffering severely from the turbulence. However , I was in Titan territory , pumped for kickoff and eager to get to the ground. I jumped on a bus taking in the area , heading for the hotel in Burleigh Heads.

After checking into the hotel , I got ready for the game and made my way for the bus stop opposite that would take me to Robina , i.e Skilled Park. It was here that I came in contact with the local people for the first time. It was only about 3:30pm but that must not be too early for some to get on the drink up there. This man at the bus stop was lying face down on the pavement with an empty bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. This I thought was not what I had traveled for but it sure was interesting to say the least. Luckily the bus came on time and I left the poor bastard there.

The bus however was naturally full of Titans fans and when I say full , I mean packed. Picture that with me standing up the front of the bus dressed in my Raiders Army tee and Raiders gear. I was public enemy no. 1 right now. If I was to take a positive out of it , which I did , it was that it wasn’t going to be hard to find the ground as I’d just follow these blue and yellow fickle folk. Arriving at Skilled Park was filled with much relief though as I spotted a few Raiders fans walking in.

With a ticket for the away supporters bay , I headed for the gates of section 14. There was a good group of Raiders fans waiting to get in when I got there. A Kiwi family dressed in green clothing from head to toe . Great to see , although I thought I was bad with my green jeans. I was thinking of asking them if they would like a photo taken considering there enthusiasm , but after looking at the father , I thought that may be a bad idea.

I did , however , strike up a conversation with a guy in front of me. I started it off with ‘Supporting the Raiders tonight?’ He said he was as he mentioned that he was Stuart Flanagan’s cousin. I didn’t know whether to believe this random or not. He did go onto say that he had just spoken to David Furner and was not happy at being told that Flanagan had been dropped.

A few minutes later , bags were checked , tickets were scanned and I was inside the ground. After not eating anything since breakfast , I set sail for the bar. I would say the food is on par with the Sydney Football Stadiums variety. Chicken strips , Pies and Sausage rolls. With the food I needed an alcoholic beverage , and not being a spirits drinker I checked out the beer prices. It was then much to my astonishment , that I was left with a Hahn premium light for $6 (not a fan of XXXX). I thought $6 for a light beer was a bit steep considering they had already charged me $29 to get into the joint. I reluctantly accepted the $6 beer price and headed inside.

The customer service lady greeted me with an interesting look once she saw that I was from the Raiders Army. I was a one man army , not like I could cause much trouble. Many more Raiders fans were gathering which was good to see. Regulars to Sydney and Canberra fixtures , Paul ‘Newy_raider’ , raiderette_ness’ ‘Philgrahamgirl’ turned up. It was good seeing a few regular faces.

The U/20’s had kicked off and the stadium was certainly ‘like a library’. All you could hear was the ball being kicked and peoples phones going off. A tight first half , Gold Coast’s young side spilling the ball a number of times just before the line. Halftime came , 4-0 to the Titans. At halftime , I threw my set seat out the window , not literally , but I moved , eager to get closer to the field. As we all know the second half ended in a score line of 40-10. I was hoping it wasn’t going to resemble the first grade match. One thing is for sure is that we all knew by then that Travis Waddell was playing in first grade , much to the delight of just about everyone (except of course Stuart Flanagan’s brother) .

It was 30 minutes till kick off , newy_raider and myself moved up higher in the stands to get a better view and to spread out a bit. The Gold Coast officials certainly put on a show in regards to the match day entertainment . With a competition to win a Jet Star flight to a Titans away game on offer (much like the local liquor ad) , and also $500 to win if you won a race inside a blow up ball.

After all that madness too place , kick-off was upon us and out came the Raiders. I threw up the 4 papers of confetti while others waved there flags. Section 14 was sprinkled with Raiders ready to voice there support. That other side , the Titans were out and and supported loudly by many. Some good defence from the men green in the opening minutes set up an encouraging first half half. A raiders try to new kid on the block Jarrod Croker in the opening 3 minutes sent all of us into hysterics. It was what we had been hoping for , and was a great way to start off the first set.

Canberra continued there tight defence , hanging on at stages and having luck at times when the Titans spilled the ball. 6-4 to the Raiders at the break and all of us felt pretty satisfied with how things had gone. A few more tries would obviously had been nice , but to be 6-4 up in an away match against the second placed side was a very good effort. The Raiders were would be running towards us in the second half so we could give them all the support they needed. The first 20 minutes was much the same as the first. Tight defence , a few mistakes . The Titans however , were the first to score in this half with a controversial try to former Raider William Zillman. It went up to the man upstairs , but to the disappointment of many it was awarded and Scott Prince converted.

We were all desperate for the Raiders to hit back with a try and with about 15 minutes to go they did. From a bit of creativeness and intuition , it came from Adrian Purtell in the corner. Up in the stands , we went off with a feeling that we would be heading back home with a sweet victory. Campo missed the conversion so it was 10-10 with about 10 minutes to go. We were all on the edge of our seats hoping for someone to break the line , a chip over the top. Personally I thought a field goal wouldn’t be enough to win. Campo had an attempt and it was a swing and a miss from . The thought of extra time came to mind. However , with two minutes to go Matt Rogers darted past a few defenders and that was game set and match.

It was a feeling of ‘damnit’ once the siren sounded but then I thought it was better than what I expected. To travel that distance and get a competitive match like that is not too bad at all. They tried hard , put in and thats all you can ask for.
So it was off back to the hotel , copping some smart **** comments from a few Titans fans as I made my way to the bus. Not knowing the area all that well I ended up getting off too early and had to walk another 10 minutes to the hotel. With the alarm set for 7am for a 10am flight , it was time to turn in for the evening.

The day after the match and I made my way to the airport for the flight back home. A young Raiders fan was in the same line to get his flight ticket. I mentioned the loss to him but I think I scared him unintentionally. I also spotted a Bulldogs fan and told him to be ready for Sunday. I thought I had seen the last Titans fan the evening before but there was one at the airport with his flag ready to fly home as well.

About to board my flight , I noticed the Referee’s leaving also on there cheap Jet Star flight. I didn’t say anything to them , could have , but wanted to get home safely without causing a ruckus. On the plane and satisfied with the trip up , a win would of been the icing on the cake , a great B’day present. In the end , I satisfied with the competitive match and if the Raiders keep up that sort of play they will cause trouble for many sides.

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