Newcastle Knights vs Canberra Raiders Preview
Newcastle Knights are struggling to put points on the board and Canberra Raiders can edge this Easter Sunday clash. I'm not expecting a blowout with another grinding victory for the visitors the best value.
- 3 of Canberra’s 4 games this season have finished with a 1-12 margin. The majority of their games last year also finished with that margin. Away favourites are covering at the highest rate of this season 57.1%
- 5 of the last 6 regular season matchups between these two teams have gone Under the Game Total.
- Canberra have allowed a try to opposition fullbacks in 3 of 4 games this season.
- Fletcher Hunt has scored in 2 of his 3 games this season and crossed for a try in this same matchup last season.
Head to Head
Canberra won both matchups last year and three of the last four but it is a clean 6-6 record in regular season matchups since the start of the 2019 season.
The Game total has gone Under in eight of 12 games in the same span including five straight before the most recent game went Over.
Newcastle have a 8-4 ATS record in this matchup.
Newcastle Knights Struggling For Points
The Knights had one of the upsets of the round last weekend, beating the Bulldogs 24-16 at Accor. It was their third win of the season, pushing them up to 4th on the ladder after 4 rounds of footy.
Newcastle fans were devastated after losing both Dylan Brown and Kalyn Ponga after just a couple of games but the Knights have been able to rally by doing the small things well and often.
It is still likely that they will struggle to score lots of points against top sides until their full spine is back but they will pull their opposition into a grind and try to take advantage of opportunities to score when they appear.
Canberra Raiders Hangover Continues
Canberra are 1-3 to start the year and we are one more loss away from designating a hangover and regression from last year’s table topping performance. Last week they lost 34-22 at home to the Sharks.
Both teams were pretty evenly matched on the stats sheet, especially in the important metrics like Run Metres, Missed Tackles, Errors and Completion Rate. The difference being that Cronulla were able to capitalise on their opportunities while Canberra didn’t.
The Raiders are allowing an average of almost 1700 Run Metres to their opposition per game which puts them in the bottom 3rd of all teams in the league.