Canberra Raiders vs. Sydney Roosters

The first of today’s NRL Round 5 matches is between Canberra Raiders and Sydney Roosters. The game is set to commence at 5:30pm local time with the game to be played at Parramatta Stadium. The away team Sydney Roosters are the current favourites in the market. View our game preview and teams for the match between Canberra Raiders and Sydney Roosters.

Did someone mention Sonny Bill Williams? He’s warming up to a big one for the Roosters. In the first three rounds, he concentrated on playing himself back into league and getting the basics right. Against the Eels, he started getting the offload going. He ran the ball seven times and offloaded on four of those occasions. If you’re not going to wrap up SBW, you’re asking him to carve you up.

Watch Out Roosters: Reece Robinson obviously wasn’t the destroyer for the Raiders against the Knights that he was against the Dragons, but he still ran the ball for 159 metres. So he was trying to put himself in the game. Against the Dragons, he was on fire, scoring two tries and setting up another. He has got the ability to create space for himself with the combination of a feint and blinding acceleration.

Roosters winger Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is now quickly making a name for himself. It took him a while to actually start scoring tries – he didn’t get any in his six games last year, or his first three this year – but he got off the mark with a bang when he scored three against the Eels. The Roosters love kicking to his wing, because he’s great in the air.

It’s got to be in the halves, where Maloney and Mitchell Pearce will go in for the Roosters against Raiders pair Josh McCrone and Sam Williams.

Maloney and Pearce are a new combination, but they are working it out well. Maloney is starting to run more now. He came up with 84 metres and two line-breaks against the Broncos, and backed that up with 55 metres against the Eels in a game where he just had to set up the players outside him.

McCrone pushes himself hard to make something happen, but sometimes too hard. He came up with three errors against the Knights. McCrone (three line-break assists, two try assists) is the senior partner in the Raiders’ halves, and really needs to control this game for them.

Where It Will Be Won: The Roosters have got it going on all over the place at the moment. If they just break even in the forward battle they are going to beat most teams. Currently they rank 10th for metres gained each week (with 1308) while Canberra rank 13th (with 1255). The Raiders are going to have to get on top in the forwards or they can forget about the two competition points, even playing at home.

The History: Played 53; Roosters 29, Raiders 24. The ledger is four games apiece from the past eight clashes – although the Raiders hold a 10-6 advantage at Canberra Stadium. Neither side has ever held the other scoreless.

Teams:

Canberra Raiders:
Reece Robinson, Sandor Earl, Jarrod Croker, Jack Wighton, Edrick Lee, Josh McCrone (c), Sam Williams, David Shillington (c), Glen Buttriss, Brett White, Josh Papalii, Joel Thompson, Shaun Fensom
Interchange: Matt McIlwrick,, Joel Edwards, Dane Tilse, Tom Learoyd-Lahrs, Anthony Milford (one to be omitted).
Sydney Roosters:
Anthony Minichiello (c), Daniel Tupou, Michael Jennings, Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, James Maloney, Mitchell Pearce, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Jake Friend, Sam Moa, Mitchell Aubusson, Sonny Bill Williams, Boyd Cordner
Interchange: Daniel Mortimer, Martin Kennedy, Isaac Liu, Aidan Guerra, Luke O’Donnell (one to be omitted)