David Shillington staked an early claim for a Queensland Origin spot in leading the Canberra Raiders to a rugged 24-12 win over the Gold Coast Titans at Skilled Park on Saturday night.
The former Maroon missed the 2011 campaign through injury but was unstoppable against the Titans as he barged his way upfield for 196 metres off 21 runs.
His efforts laid the platform for a four-tries-to-two win against a patchy Gold Coast outfit brought back to earth following the 18-0 win over an insipid North Queensland in round one.
Raiders centre Jarrod Croker had a personal total of 16 points after bagging a brace of tries and kicking four conversions, while New South Wales hopeful Josh Dugan showed strength to drag two defenders over for a first-half try and kicked a 40/20 in the first half.
The Titans were overrun in front of 11,378 home fans in the opening stages of both halves, with Raiders coach David Furner praising the second half shutout for the victory.
“There’s a lot of commitment there in defence,” Furner said.
“If you are going to win games you have to win it through your defence.
“Second half … we had a shutout. No points. That was a credit to the players.”
The club was then denied two tries in the closing three minutes of the game, with referee Steve Lyons sin-binning Terry Campese for a professional foul on Luke Douglas but not awarding a try and video referee Steve Clark finding an obstruction when Mark Minichiello crossed.
Titans coach John Cartwright felt his side had been unfairly denied in both instances, although conceded they had no bearing on the final result.
“They didn’t affect (the final result) but they probably cost us a chance,” he said.
“We would have had one set (to level the scores).
“I think they were both tries (but) I might be a bit biased, what do you reckon?
“… It was one we definitely though should we should win … They were too good for us.”
Adding to the club’s pain winger David Mead was also forced from the field with a suspected broken jaw.
The Raiders surged to a 12-0 lead by the 20 minute mark when Croker touched down a Jack Wighton bat off a Terry Campese bomb.
The Gold Coast responded by applying plenty of pressure of their own, but three consecutive sets on the Raiders line ended when powerhouse secondrower Josh Papalii put a monster of a hit on Minichiello to knock the ball loose.
The Titans eventually cracked the defensive line, levelling the scores just before halftime through tries to Jordan Rankin and Dominique Peyroux.
The Raiders had all the possession to start the second half and only some brilliant defence from off-season recruit Nate Myles prevented Shaun Fensom from barging over.
Joel Thompson eventually stole the lead back when he strolled through a yawning gap in the 52nd minute, McCrone adding the extras to open up an 18-12 advantage.
The error and penalty counts continued to soar for the Titans and Croker touched down another Campese bomb in the 68th minute, converting his own try to extend the lead to 24-12.
