Only a week after this column openly questioned who was go-ing to give the Dragons a run for their money, the boys from Can-berra stood tall.

Admittedly I was wondering who would put up a fight in the semi finals but Saturday’s effort has made everyone take notice.

Sure, it was hardly a game for the ages but it was a game plan from a classic past all right.

The Raiders looked like they’d run straight off aViking boat, ready to take all before them.

While it wasn’t as simple as just ‘bung on a stink’ to unsettle the opposition, the Green Machine’s muscle up approach mixed with attacking football, worked a treat.

It had the hallmarks of a match played in the mid 1980s – beat them and if not, beat them up.

Canberra managed both.

It may not have been pretty but it was effective and showed what some old school ruff’n’tumble can do these days to put a team off its game.

There were three fights, as many sin-binnings, a knocked out player and one on report.

There was almost no time for football, certainly not enough time to build lenghts of momen-tum and that’s exactly what the Raiders were banking on.

Unable to simply out-football a team like they’ve been doing, the Dragons got bogged down in a physical arm-wrestle that would have frustrated them no end but they should have seen it coming.

Boasting some former Raiders who were back home for the first time in opposing colours, partic-ularly Michael Weyman, alarm bells should have rung well before Josh Miller hit the scene.

He was the Canberra Cannon-ball who shot out of the line and directly into Weyman knocking the Blues prop for six.

It set the tone for a rowdy night, which saw Canberra score a major upset and provide the rest of the competition with some-thing of an insight into what might just be a spot of weakness in the Dragon’s game.

No team likes to hear it but mention ‘soft underbelly’ around St George-Illawarra way and you might just get a clip for your trouble – well, a stern look at least.