One of the question marks surrounding the Canberra Raiders' bid for back-to-back grand final appearances in 2020 was the potency of the club's newly-formed halves pairing.
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On Saturday night, Jack Wighton and George Williams put all speculation to bed during a 22-6 win over the Melbourne Storm as the playmakers' fingerprints were all over the AAMI Park boilover.
The green machine's efforts were so impressive that Craig Bellamy dubbed Stuart's men as the premiership favourites in the hours ensuing the result.
"We know they're a good team, probably favourites to win the competition. Played in the grand final last year," Bellamy said. "We know they're a good team and very professional, very relentless and ruthless with what they do. It's not hard to pick what they do, but they do it so consistently well."
UK import George Williams was understandably delighted with the outcome of Saturday's tilt but is making sure he and Wighton don't get complacent.
"Me and Jackie [Wighton] can just push off the back of that, and just push into the next hole. It was a great performance. We'll go back to the drawing board and not get too carried away," Williams said.
While you need points to win footy games, the adage says that 'defence wins championships' and in the case of Canberra's efforts last night, their effort without the ball was as good as you'll ever see.
After Jordan Rapana and Nick Cotric tries saw the away side shoot out to a 12-nil lead inside the first 13 minutes, the Storm were able to wrestle back momentum with a Dale Finucane try under the sticks.
But, that momentum was short-lived as a George WIlliams line break set up Charnze Nicoll Klokstad for a try, giving the green machine an 18-6 lead at the half.
It was a buffer the Raiders had until the 80th minute as they repelled Melbourne raids for what felt like the entire second stanza as their desperation and fitness was on show for the world to see.
With 48 seconds left, George Williams denied the obvious last-tackle option to put the ball into touch, opting instead to send a cut-out pass to Curtis Scot who got out the outside of Justin Olam at the halfway line.
The former Melbourne centre put in a chip kick that would be recovered by a surging Nick Cotric. With 30 metres to go and the sideline nearby, Cotic booted the ball into open pasture and after it deflecting off a scrambling Josh Addo-Carr in the Storms' in-goal, was pounced on by Joseph Tapine for a miraculous try.
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