Canberra kept their 2012 finals hopes alive and continued Brisbane’s slide down the ladder with a 28-12 home win in Round 22 last season.
A dour first half didn’t give too much away about the final result with a brilliantly worked Alex Glenn try after 20 minutes cancelled out by Travis Waddell’s close-range effort from dummy-half.
But it was the Raiders shooting out of the blocks quickly after the break with Sam Williams hoisting the ball high at the end of the opening set and Jarrod Croker swooping to pluck the ball from the grasp of Josh Hoffman and score.
Fifteen minutes later Broncos coach Anthony Griffin would have been tearing his hair out as the Broncos failed to find touch from a penalty and just a few tackles later Williams served up a sensational ball for Shaun Fensom to crash over alongside the posts.
Brisbane closed the gap to four points with 15 minutes remaining when Glenn sliced through for his second, but a late Josh Dugan double – the first a show of brute strength and the second a clever grubber for himself – ensured the Green Machine took home the two competition points.
Canberra ran for 1443 metres to Brisbane’s 1257 and produced 19 more hit-ups with Brisbane paying the price for 40 missed tackles.
Seven Raiders players topped 100 metres including Fensom who made 172 metres and 52 tackles in a stunning individual performance.
Andrew McCullough made 53 tackles and Corey Parker 47 tackles for the Broncos.
