The Raiders have fallen short in their first ever NRLW match, losing to an impressive Cronulla side 28-14 in Sydney.
Five years after being controversially denied entry to the competition, Cronulla piled on six tries to three at PointsBet Stadium with NSW State of Origin stars Emma Tonegato and hooker Quincy Dodd, and exciting teenage fullback Jada Taylor the stand-outs.
Tonegato made the shift from fullback to five-eighth to accommodate Taylor’s inclusion and controlled the game with aplomb while also etching her name in the history books as Cronulla’s first-ever NRLW try-scorer.
Centre and captain Tiana Penitani, impressive second-rower Vanessa Foliaki and prop Ellie Johnston also crossed for the winners.
After jumping out to a 14-0 lead, the Sharks had to weather a mid-match fightback from the Raiders and would have won more handsomely had halfback Tayla Preston slotted more than two of her six conversion attempts.
The Raiders threatened a comeback when they narrowed the deficit to four points with quickfire tries either side of the break through winger Madison Bartlett, who finished with a double, and interchange hooker Emma Barnes.
But Dodd snuffed out the recovery mission with her second try in the 42nd minute, this time squeezing over from dummy-half after a runaway effort before the interval.
Meanwhile, the Wests Tigers thrashed last year’s runners-up Parramatta 36-8 as returning fullback Botille-Vette Welsh and prop Sarah Togatuki starred.
Fielding seven debutants at CommBank Stadium, the Tigers had been tipped to take time to warm into their inaugural season given the number of fresh faces on their roster.
But established players Togatuki and Vette-Welsh stood up in a fast-finishing win that gives long-suffering Tigers fans something to cheer about.
Togatuki finished with 219-run metres – almost 100m more than any Eels forward – and the try that opened the floodgates in the second half.
Fullback Vette-Welsh celebrated her first game back from an anterior cruciate ligament injury with an early try and five late assists, mostly in the form of dynamic passes for her edge players.
The Eels lost their two star recruits Elsie Albert and Rachael Pearson to calf injuries in their final training session but had the better of the first half despite needing to make last-minute changes.
The Eels are still assessing Papua New Guinea international prop Albert and NSW representative half Pearson but they do not believe the injuries are long-term at this stage.
Zali Fay became the second player to score two tries in an NRLW game for Parramatta, crossing twice on the left wing to help the Eels to a 8-4 half-time lead.
But that was as good as things got for the home side.
Vette-Welsh became the Tigers’ first NRLW tryscorer in her first NRLW game since suffering an ACL tear that ruled her out of the 2022 campaign.
She dummied and stepped inside a hole on the left but errors prevented the Tigers from scoring again in the first half.
But when Vette-Welsh scooted into the line and passed to a flying Togatuki, the former Sydney Rooster ran 30 metres to score and sparked a 19-minute skirmish during which Wests score five more times.
Once the Tigers had their eye in, the Eels were alarmingly short of answers, Vette-Welsh and under-19s NSW State of Origin representative Losana Lutu combining effectively on the edges.
When Vette-Welsh popped an inside ball to Jakiya Whitfeld, the Tigers had opened up a 12-point buffer and were on their way to a big win.
