It was the Raiders second big win in Queensland in 2019 as they overcame the North Queensland Cowboys 30-12 at 1300 SMILES Stadium.
The Raiders were strong from the start and quickly ran in two tries to make use of their early possession. Overall, Stuart’s side finished up on 53% possession. From 41 sets the team completed 32 of those for a 78% rate. The Cowboys had a night to forget as they completed 25 out of their 39 sets for a rate of 64%.
The green machine piled on the running metres throughout the contest as they registered 1594 metres from 173 runs. The men from Townsville could only muster 1355 metres from 167 runs.
Stuart’s side edged out Green’s troops with seven off loads compared to four. The men from the ACT also registered more line breaks than their opponents with four compared to two.
Both sides were evenly split with 326 tackles while the Cowboys made more missed tackles with 29 compared to 25.
Canberra conceded seven penalties compared to North Queensland’s six however the losing side came up with 15 errors throughout the match while the Raiders only made nine.
Match Highlights: Cowboys v Raiders
Individual Statistics:
There were some key performers from Saturday’s win in Townsville. Jordan Rapana registered the most amount of running metres with 178. Next in line was Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad on 146 followed by Ryan Sutton on 139.
Josh Papalii continued his strong start to the season by registering 44 post contact metres from 100 metres in total. Ryan Sutton was able to register 42 post contact metres.
Jordan Rapana was lethal in attack as he registered a total of two tries, two line breaks and one try assist.
The English led the way for the green machine in defence with Josh Hodgson making a total of 43 tackles. Ryan Sutton was next on 36 while Elliott Whitehead and John Bateman followed with 34 and 33 respectively.
Captain Jarrod Croker registered 1800 NRL points during the win over the Cowboys. The stalwart also became the third most capped player at 234 first grade games, overtaking Simon Woolford on 233.
