Mondayitis

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday April 3, 2007

BRETT KEEBLE RUGBY LEAGUE

THE wooden-spoon-favourite Raiders turned Newcastle's dream start to the season into a nightmare with a 48-18 flogging of the Knights at Canberra Stadium last night.

The Green Machine avenged their humiliating 70-32 loss to the Knights in the corresponding game last year by racing in eight tries to three to register their first win of the year and inflict Newcastle's first NRL loss under coach Brian Smith.

Posting their highest score in three years, the Raiders re-established their hoodoo over the Knights, who have won just twice from 14 games in the national capital.

Smith now has just four days to prepare the Knights for their next assignment, against the unbeaten Melbourne Storm at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Saturday, but will welcome NSW captain Danny Buderus back from suspension.

"Canberra were intense and quicker to the punch than we were with almost everything," Smith said.

"When they did lose that for a little while and we got back on top, they soon got it back again, which is the sign of a good team."

In his first full game this season, Knights captain Andrew Johns looked well short of a gallop, and the champion halfback was unable to provide any individual spark when his teammates were going backwards and looking for inspiration.

A disconsolate Johns did not attend the post-match media conference and did not answer questions from journalists in the dressing-room.

"It wasn't his best game . . . I think we were all on the back foot, so no one's going to have their best game," Smith said of his skipper.

"We had the disease right across the board tonight. Andrew will play better than that next week, and I'm sure he'll have plenty of good ones in the next few weeks."

Asked whether Johns should shelve any plans to come out of representative retirement to play in this year's Origin series and concentrate solely on playing for the Knights, Smith said: "That's not a decision for me."

Adding to Newcastle's problems, props Josh Perry (neck) and Luke Davico (rib cartilage) suffered injuries and are in doubt for the game against the Storm.

Continued Page 52

Newcastle left feeling little green

From Page 56

Perry was in a neck brace after the game and will be examined further by the club's medical staff when the Knights return to Newcastle today.

Despite their lacklustre performance in the first half, the Knights fought back to level the scores at 18-all when rookie back-rower Corey Paterson dived over in the 46th minute after Adam MacDougall tidied up a Johns cross-field bomb.

But Scone-born Canberra prop Dane Tilse, sacked by the Knights for an off-field incident after a pre-season game at Bathurst in 2005, turned the match with a line drop-out kick-return and deft off-load for fullback William Zillman in the 53rd minute. Zillman, who finished with a hat-trick, raced through a gap to score out wide and the rout was on.

Further tries followed for prop Scott Logan in the 59th minute, winger Colin Best (63rd), centre Phil Graham (68th), then Zillman bagged his third when he was first man to a Michael Dobson grubber in the 79th minute.

Inspired by little men Todd Carney, Zillman, Dobson, Alan Tongue and Lincoln Withers, the Raiders recovered from an early MacDougall try to dominate the first half and lead 16-12 at the break.

Newcastle's defensive line struggled to contain Canberra's quick play-the-balls and equally frenetic passing and off-loads, and the Raiders converted chances into points.

Though it was a miserable night for the Knights, their first try was a bottler.

Clint Newton's off-load set the wheels in motion, Paterson brilliantly batted on a Johns cut-out pass to George Carmont, and MacDougall finished off by touching down in the corner.

But the Raiders dominated field position and possession for the next 20 minutes and were rewarded with tries to centre Marshall Chalk (14th minute), Withers (20th) and Zillman (29th).

Canberra coach Neil Henry was thrilled with the win.

"I'm happy for the boys more so because it's a young team and I think they'll gain a lot of confidence from that performance," Henry said.

RAIDERS

v

KNIGHTS

CANBERRA STADIUM

48 SCORE 18

16 Half-time 12

29/40 Completions/Sets 23/36

243 Tackles 260

34 Missed Tackles 36

149 Hit-ups 131

6 Line Breaks 2

22 Kicks 13

8 Offl oads 9

13 Errors 13

54% Possession 46%

None Sin bin/Sent off None

© 2007 Newcastle Herald

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