Their finals chances are still alive, but the Canberra Raiders could face one of rugby league history’s most unwanted honours if they fail to close the gap on the teams in the bottom half of the top eight.
The Green Machine are on a roll, winning five of their last six games, and coach Ricky Stuart says the club is already treating every game like a semi-final, knowing that one more loss would be enough to kill off their faint hopes.
After beating the Knights on Sunday, winning just one of their final two games would give the Raiders a winning record for the year – but only winning one would also likely consign them to history as the first team in the 21st century to record a winning season and still fail to play finals football.
The last team to do it? The 1999 Raiders, who won 13 of their 24 games (plus one draw) and still finished ninth by one competition point.
It's a remarkable turnaround from the battles for eighth that we've become accustomed to. Just last year the Gold Coast made the finals despite losing 14 of 24 games. In 2019 and 2020 the eight-placed team did not possess a winning record.
Stuart, who had left the club at the end of 1998 to join the Bulldogs, has been impressed by his team’s preparation and effort with so much on the line.
“I think we’ve been in semi-final mode from a training point of view (with) the pressure on the result, for a number of weeks now,” Stuart told the Canberra Times.
“It hasn’t affected the boys. Over the last eight to 10 games the quality of our preparation has been (at) a very high standard.”
“I credit my senior players for the way they’re leading the training environment.”
Time is running out for Stuart’s men, thanks to big wins for the Parramatta Eels and Sydney Roosters. While the win against Newcastle keeps them within two points of eighth-placed Brisbane, their negative for-and-against means that being level on competition points may not be enough.
But with a run home that includes struggling sides Manly and the Wests Tigers, the opportunity still exists for the Raiders to nab a finals spot – especially with Brisbane and the Eels set to face each other next week.