Canberra Bloke Not Getting Ahead Of Himself But Yeah It’s Looking Pretty Good

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

The next week could very well determine the result of the 2025 NRL Premiership.

This comes as four-time NRL champions, The Penrith Panthers, go head-to-head with this year’s grand final favourites, The Canberra Raiders.

The match will be taking place exactly halfway between their two home ground, at Glen Willow Oval in the Central-West NSW town of Mudgee.

While NRL fans have learnt to not underestimate the Panthers at the pointy end of the NRL season, there seems to be a peaceful pathology emanating from the nation’s capital.

Raiders fans, who are all too familiar with the cruel near-misses that have defined their last 30 years of winter football, are in the flow state.

Anything could happen, but they aren’t going to get into their heads about it.

Local Raiders tragic, Balvin ‘Moose’ Head (49), says when he isn’t working hard as a selfless public servant at the National Seed Bank, he meditates to the dulcet Canberran sounds of Peking Duk and The Plunderers.

His peace of mind does not depend on the results of this weekend’s football match. He knows Cleary is on and off, and he knows his boys can often surprise.

But it’s the consistency of the 2025 season that has really settled his nerves.

“Yeah look it was a shame we lost to the Dragons but it’s good to chalk up your losses against teams that won’t do anything with the momentum” says Moose.

“And look, maybe, if we are going to lose to Penrith, this is the match where we want to do that”

As Moose points out, every Raiders fan is just taking this finals tilt one viking clap at a time. They have trust in the programme.

“I take back everything I’ve said about Ricky Stuart over this last decade” says Moose.

“I should have never doubted the ten year plan”

With his Raiders-themed fake Nike TNs arriving in the mail, and his lime green lanyard around his neck at every minute of the day, Balvin says the club’s performances this year has resulted in much less reliance on superstition.

“I’ve stopped the silly stuff. You know. I don’t drink lime flavoured milk on game day, anymore. And I no longer have to watch their matches with a 20-minute delay on Kayo”

“Look, I don’t wanna get too ahead of myself here, but it’s look pretty good”

“Also, I think Jamal Fogarty is a future immortal just quietly.”

“But yeah that six again call in 2019 was complete bullshit. We’ll do alright if Uncle Nick doesn’t start pulling levers again”