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.