Cody Masterclass Not Enough
It was always going to be a tough night missing not only our injured players, but also our Origin players. Missing the likes of Tom Burgess, Campbell Graham, Jai Arrow, Cam Murray and Latrell Mitchell was always going to make it that much harder to win.
No Stopping Cody
Yet that didn’t stop Cody Walker. He almost single handily won us the game. Everything good in attack came off the back of Cody. Twice in the second half we hit the lead one from a beautiful long cut out pass from Cody to Tass. The other a perfect kick in goal for Cook to pounce on.

That second one should have seen us win the game.
Defence Exposed
Sadly like the previous week our defence let us down.
The right side defence was twice exposed. There was an obvious target with Campbell Graham missing. Jed Cartwright and Taane Milne together was always going to be tested.
Both the Raiders tries in the second half were long range tries and Jack Wighton exposed the weakness. The second try he beat Ilias to then set up his unmarked winger. Jed once again coming in unnecessarily. Then Milne stuck in no man’s land leaving his winger with a clear passage.
What was disappointing was the cover was there to take the centre. Despite the poor defence from his inside men, if Milne stays on his winger he stops the threat. It wasn’t to be.
One More Chance
We still had one more chance though. A short kick off where the ball bounced perfectly for us. We find ourselves attacking the line. Did we have one try left in us?
Unfortunately not. The ref made sure of that calling a very questionable forward pass by Cody Walker. What was disappointing about this call was there was a blatant forward pass missed by the officials not long before this. From there we didn’t see the ball again. That was game.
The way that Cody was playing you give us every chance of snatching victory there. Although it shouldn’t have come down to that.
Through The Middle
The damage was really done in the first half though. Once again we saw our middles dominated. It didn’t help that the likes of Knight and Cook weren’t getting back in the line after making tackles. Knight didn’t look right at all. Looked underdone.
We have rarely seen our middles open up so easily. Although missing the likes of Murray and Arrow will do that.
When Shaq Mitchell and Daniel Suluka-Fifita came on things started to tighten up in the middle. That also coincided with Papalii and Tapine coming off. They really killed us.
Kick Variety
I would love to see more variation in our kicking game. Not sure if it’s a directive of the coach or not, but we need to see it mixed up. It seems when we loose the forward battle our kicking game really struggles. An area that really needs to improve.
In the last 2 weeks we have seen our defensive resolve disappear. We went from conceding 13 points a game in the first 11 weeks, to over 34 points a game the last 2. This is the biggest concern right now.
Keaon, Blake, Tallis & Isaiah
It was a welcome return of Keaon Koloamatangi. Big effort from him playing the full 80. Going from right to the middle to the left.
Another return to first grade was Blake Taaffe. Wasn’t easy coming in and filling the shoes of Latrell. He didn’t let anyone down. He won’t put fear in the defensive line like Latrell does, but he was safe all night. It was a great effort in the first half to almost pull of a try saving tackle on Hopoate.

It was great to see Tallis Duncan get his debut. He didn’t let anyone down. From his first run you could see there is class about him. Even his defence. When so many others struggle with Papalii, he cut him down.
Isaiah Tass was another who stood out for us. Made the most metres for us, with 2 try assists and a try to go with it. He couldn’t have done much more.
How We Bounce Back
That loss sees us drop to 5th on the ladder. The last 2 weeks has certainly put a dampener on our great start to the season. It’s now about how we bounce back.
This week we fly up to the Gold Coast. South East Queensland has been a good place for us of late. The Gold Coast always seems to be a home game for us where our fans outnumber theirs by quite a bit. I don’t expect any different on Saturday evening.
A win this week will see us back in the top 4.
Cody Masterclass Not Enough.
By Josh Kemp for Bunnies TV.
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