The Canberra Raiders have romped to an easy 48-4 win over the North Queensland Cowboys as they move into the top 8 with one round remaining.
The Raiders who seem to be the form team of the competition scored 9 tries to 1, and are now just one win away from guaranteeing themselves a top 8 spot.
The man-of-the-match came from an unlikely source with late call-up Reece Robinson scoring a phenomenal 4 tries.
Taking the place of Adam Mogg, who was injured in the warm-up, Robinson took the bull by the horns and played the game of his life.
“I think I was just on the end of things, I just popped up when I had to pop up really,” he said, adding he hoped to make many more first-grade appearances for the green machine.
The Raiders simply proved to be far too good for a poor Cowboys side, no doubt missing the leadership of inspirational halfback Jonathon Thurston.
The loss was the Cowboys fifth successive loss of the season, and had it not been for the Storm’s salary cap breach, they would have finished last, thus handing them the wooden spoon.
Canberra coach David Furner said that his team was confident that they could come away with the win.
“We did have some milestones, 200 games there for (co-captain Alan Tongue), we had some guys that were leaving, we had our last home game and a must-win game,” he said.
“You could just tell during the week that the players were looking forward to the game.”
There was a few sore points for the Raiders though with both Joe Picker and Alan Tounge picking up injuries that could see them miss next week’s game.
North Queensland coach Neil Henry agreed that his side was beaten fair and square.
“It has been a tough year,” he said.
“We’re disappointed that we couldn’t defend with a lot more intensity and they rolled through us and we couldn’t stop the points.”