Raiders outmuscle Souths to win 34-18 - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Raiders outmuscle Souths to win 34-18

By Ian McCullough 01/06/2009 10:23:12 PM Comments (0)

Canberra showed no ill effects from the loss of Terry Campese to State of Origin duty with an impressive 34-18 NRL victory over South Sydney at ANZ Stadium on Monday night.

The win was only the Raiders' second outside the nation's capital this season and it was a dominant display with halfback pairing Marc Herbert and Campese deputy Josh McCrone both enjoying outstanding games.

David Furner's side started superbly with two tries within the first 10 minutes through Australian international Joel Monaghan and fullback David Milne.

Monaghan crossed in the right corner with six minutes on the clock after referee Ashley Klein ruled he had not been held up by Fetuli Talanoa following video referee Phil Cooley's decision to refer the ruling back to the on-field official.

Milne then extended the Raiders' lead when he latched onto a pass from Herbert after good work out of dummy-half Glen Buttriss.

Souths finally woke up and started playing after 14 minutes with John Sutton, who was a shock inclusion at five-eighth after being sidelined for almost a month with a broken hand, playing a key role in the fight back, finding Luke Capewell with a neat pass for the fullback to dive over the line.

Sutton then kicked a high spiralling kick in the 32nd minute and Nathan Merritt leaped above Jarrod Croker to score, with the video referee ruling the winger had not impeded the Raiders' centre.

Issac Luke's kick levelled the scores but almost immediately the Raiders restored their lead with Herbert touching down under the posts.

Herbert converted but Souths had the final say for the half when Talanoa was the recipient of a beautifully-weighted grubber-kick from Sutton to slide over and score.

Furner's side started the second stanza in almost identical fashion to the first when Dane Tilse finished off a superbly-worked set instigated by Herbert.

The impressive Tom Learoyd-Lahrs then put the game out of Souths' reach on 62 minutes when Tilse spun his way past three players to offload to the former Brisbane second row who crashed over the line.

Nigel Plum made it a hat-trick of tries for the Raiders' forwards when once again the Rabbitohs found themselves outmuscled on their goal line.

Herbert's subsequent kick gave him a personal haul of five goals and a try for the night before Talanoa grabbed a late consolation for the hosts when he slid over just before the final hooter.

Furner was delighted with his side's performance on the back of a comfortable win against the Warriors.

"It was a very pleasing win because we stuck to our goal and our game plan .. at halftime we felt we let them get back into the game on the back of our errors and that was a bit of a concern .. but we set ourselves a couple of targets and I felt if we stuck to them we would come away with a win," he told AAP.

Furner also made the point of singling out referees Ashley Klein and Steve Lyons for allowing the game to flow.

"I am not just saying it because we won, but referees have been getting some criticism lately, but I felt Ashley and Steve did very well tonight," he said.

"Souths won the penalty count, but it was an entertaining game to watch and I think the officials played their part in that with the way they handled the game."

Souths coach Taylor admitted his men were simply not good enough in the second half to deal with the Raiders and made no excuses for their fifth defeat of the season.

"We were not too far from where we have been for the last few weeks, we haven't been happy with what we have done, we are a bit below par at the moment," he told AAP.

"Our kicking game had kept us in the last two games and we struggled in that area tonight.

"But the bigger picture is Canberra were too desperate and too strong for us all over the field .. we didn't put them under enough pressure when we had the ball and the second half wasn't good enough and we have to do better."

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