It was during the depth of one of the NRL’s worst injury crises of the season when the belief returned to Canberra.
Bare to the bones as their injury toll mounted, the Raiders were scratching to put a forward pack on the park from the players within their bubble.
Co-captain Josh Hodgson was one of five players ruled out for the season in the space of eight days, with John Bateman missing indefinitely.
And to top things off after three losses in four games, Canberra were about to meet the Sydney Roosters at the SCG without almost half of the Raiders’ side from last year’s grand final.
Almost everyone had written off the Raiders, except for coach Ricky Stuart who had a simple message for the critics: “I don’t give a s**.”
And it was there their run to the NRL finals began.
“We had a short turnaround into the Thursday night game against the Roosters at the SCG,” co-captain Jarrod Croker said.
“And they had won 10 in a row there.
“We didn’t need to say anything to each other. There was no special meeting to say we need to do it for (the injured guys).
“We just naturally came together and rallied together.
“And that was probably the nice moment to win that game and build off the back of that into the back end of the year.”
Canberra’s run to October is potentially one of the most overlooked in the competition headed into Saturday evening’s elimination final against Cronulla.
At the time of their round-nine defeat to Melbourne where they lost Hodgson and Bailey Simonsson for the season, Canberra were at risk of dropping out of the eight.
The COVID-19 break had made up for three of their unavailabilities in the middle as Luke Bateman, JJ Collins and Jack Murchie walked away, while they were also unable to play at home for several weeks.
But since that win over the Roosters, the Raiders have won nine of 11 despite using 32 separate players this season.
“We’re a pretty tight group down here and we have faced a lot in the past couple of years and handled it well,” Croker said.
“We have given a lot of kid debuts and they have come in and not only done their job, but done it well. That is a credit to the whole club.
“It’s not just throwing a kid a jersey, it’s guys who have done a few pre-seasons and trained really hard this year without getting a game.
“They did their job because they have been part of a good system for a few years.
“We knew we still had a squad to win the competition and win games of footy.
“We didn’t have to rally together and start doing it for people. We just knew this was the team we’ve got, let’s go with it and let’s play how we know we can.”
STATS THAT MATTER
* Only Penrith have a better record than Canberra through the last 11 rounds. Melbourne are also 9-2 in that time.
* Eighth has beaten fifth just once in the eight years of the current finals system.
* Cronulla have won four of six finals against the Raiders.