Canberra have saved their NRL season with a second-half comeback, rattling off four unanswered tries to beat the Warriors 26-14 at GIO Stadium.
The Raiders trailed 12-0 before they’d even touched the ball and looked a shell of the team that rolled Melbourne last round.
But they snapped out their slumber in the second 40 minutes with a Corey Harawira-Naera double off the bench seeing them burn the Warriors off.
Canberra are now level on wins with eight-ranked Sydney Roosters, only sitting outside the finals positions via a points differential with six games left in the season.
It’s also just the third time this season they’ve won consecutive games and it couldn’t have come at a better time as they try to break into the top-eight with a favourable draw to close the regular season.
Five of their remaining six games are against bottom-eight teams and they are likely to start favourites in all outings except for a round 21 clash with Penrith.
Their fightback on Saturday began immediately after halftime when Albert Hopoate snuck over in the corner for his first Raiders try.
Seb Kris dragged another try back to make it 14-10 with 20 minutes to play, the beneficiary of a delightful Xavier Savage assist.
Sealing the deal were halfback Jamal Fogarty and bench forward Harawira-Naera, the former twice providing try assists for the latter as they made territorial dominance count with a 24-14 lead.
Remarkably, the Raiders completed all 22 of their second-half sets after going at 63 per cent in the first stanza.
The Raiders can once again thank star prop Joe Tapine for taking control in the middle after he crunched out 191m, 80m post-contact, five tackle busts and three offloads.
A busy afternoon from Adam Elliott saw him make a team-high 31 tackles to go with his 101m.
The Warriors looked sharp early but were smashed in the second half with a mere 25 per cent of territory.
Earlier, Jack Murchie and Daejarn Asi had scored the game’s opening tries, the latter capitalising after his outrageous bomb forced fullback Savage to drop the ball.
Winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak did what he could with a big 159m while Tohu Harris punched out 120m and made 42 tackles.
The Warriors’ 2022 campaign record now reads 5-13.
