Canberra Raiders coach David Furner. Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Daily Telegraph
CANBERRA coach David Furner must feel as though he is in foreign waters.
Calmer waters.
For the first time in his four-year tenure, the head of the Raiders boss is not seemingly on the chopping block as we go into the second half of the season.
While Canberra still have plenty of work to do to ensure finals football, they are much better placed than usual at this time of year - which has deflected the heat elsewhere in relation to coaches.
Heat being the operative word now that things have reached boiling point for Neil Henry in Townsville.
I must admit that if I had been told at the beginning of the season that one team would be in eighth position at the end of round 13 and the other 15th, I would have mixed up the Raiders and Cowboys.
Hopefully for Henry's sake his North Queensland team can come home with the kind of wet sail that we have become used to associating with the Green Machine.
While the general consensus has Melbourne, Manly, Souths and the Roosters as a standout top four, the Raiders again shape as a team that can have everyone looking nervously over their shoulders.
Credentials have already been somewhat established with them being the only side to have knocked over both the Storm and the Roosters this season.
They continue to build an imposing record on home soil, having now won their past nine in a row in the national capital. It's the kind of stat that hasn't been seen since their great sides of the late 1980s and early '90s.
Away from home their record is nowhere near as impressive and that is something they will need to come to grips with. But as an emerging side, I like what I see and that can be attributed to the man in charge.
David Furner was a no-nonsense player with a calm demeanour and I see the same kind of approach now that he carries a clipboard.
He won't cop what he sees as unfair treatment in any part of the game but expresses his displeasure in an obvious but measured manner.
On Monday night his team put paid to another high-profile club in the Brisbane Broncos and in doing so passed a couple of telling tests.
Firstly, they were able to take advantage of establishing early pressure and turn that into a 24-point lead.
The bulk of these points came from long-range efforts and were triggered by some wonderfully talented players.
The likes of Blake Ferguson, Edrick Lee, Jack Wighton and Reece Robinson are outstanding athletes who are capable of producing the spectacular and that makes them very dangerous.
However, what I found more impressive was that when the Broncos mounted a comeback and started to dominate possession, the home side hung tough enough.
Brisbane ran in the first two tries of the second half and went close on another couple of occasions. But in the end Canberra won comfortably and at no time did it appear that it would be any different.
I'll need to see much more of it because there is still a part of me that looks at the Raiders knowing they can rack up 30 on the scoreboard but unsure that they won't concede 32.
Apart from playing exciting football, the thing that really appeals is that the Canberra squad is full of country-born products mixed with imports who have established themselves after not playing in the NRL elsewhere.
Centres such as Goulburn, Crookwell, Cootamundra, Temora, Forbes, Leeton and Cooma are all represented, giving them a real home-town appeal.
Jarrod Croker, Shaun Fensom and Jarrad Kennedy were all members of their victorious 2008 Toyota Cup team. So was Josh Dugan, whose departure following that of Todd Carney took away plenty of class and potential strike power that the club would have enjoyed.
This is the team that will break an unusual run come September by being the first in the past decade to play finals football in consecutive years.
It is a bizarre-looking roller-coaster run during that time with five finals appearances separated by 14th, 14th, 13th and 15th placings.
In fact, they are the only club in the competition not to have missed the finals two years in a row since 1987.
The Raiders' last first-grade premiership title was in 1994 when a star-studded outfit containing Brett Mullins, Mal Meninga, Laurie Daley, Ricky Stuart, Brad Clyde and Steve Walters defeated Canterbury 36-12.
Best on ground that day in such illustrious company and awarded the Clive Churchill medal was second-rower David Furner. There would be a certain symmetry if he was the man to lead them to their next grand final success.
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