No joy for the One New Zealand Warriors’ New South Wales Cup and Jersey Flegg Cup teams on a testing road trip to Canberra for their third-round contests in Queanbeyan on Saturday.
Playing at Seiffert Oval, the Raiders’ home ground in their formative years, the competition-leading Canberra NSW Cup side stormed to a 40-4 win while the home side’s unbeaten Jersey Flegg team toppled the Warriors 44-12.
After claiming Newcastle 38-22 and Western Suburbs 50-12 in the NSW Cup’s opening two rounds, the Raiders scored in the opening minutes against the Warriors, conceded their only try of the day to winger Edward Kosi in the 15th minute and then added three tries to lead 22-4 at halftime.
The One New Zealand Warriors resisted for the first 25 minutes of the second half but couldn’t add to their solitary try before the Raiders opened up again with tries in the 65th, 70th and 76th minutes to clock up a third straight convincing win.
The Warriors had little possession, just 29 sets of which they completed only 17 for a 58 per cent completion rate. The Raiders had 42 sets, dominating possession 58 per cent to 42 per cent.
Match: Raiders v Warriors
Round 3 -
home Team
Raiders
1st Position
away Team
Warriors
12th Position
Venue: Seiffert Oval, Queanbeyan
Fullback Setu Tu made the most metres for the Warriors with 174 while Kosi made 149 and Moala Graham-Taufa 115 with Kalani Going (129) and Tanner Stowers-Smith (100) the only Warriors forwards to reach three figures. Going was the busiest defender with 36 tackles with young Eddie Ieremia making 35 and Paul Roache and Maia Sands 29 each.
The One New Zealand Warriors will relish being back at Go Media Stadium next weekend when they take on the Knights in the second leg of an Easter Sunday tripleheader (3.20pm kick-off) with the Jersey Flegg match between to two clubs starting at 1.30pm and the NRL contest at 6.05pm.
The Warriors’ Flegg side will be equally pleased to be at home after consecutive away games against Melbourne and Canberra.
After going down 10-36 to the Storm, they had a difficult day taking on the Raiders.
Canberra scored five tries in the first half to jump to a commanding 28-0 lead and extended to 38-0 in the second spell before prop Tobias Crosby scored for the One New Zealand Warriors.
Minutes later the Raiders were in again before the Warriors scored the last try of the match through loose forward Ieti Samuelu, rounding out a half in which the score was just 16-10 in Canberra's favour.
Match: Raiders v Warriors
Round 3 -
home Team
Raiders
1st Position
away Team
Warriors
14th Position
Venue: Seiffert Oval, Queanbeyan
