The Viking Clap. Adopted mid-way through the 2019 finals run, allegedly because half of GIO Stadium had just finished watching the TV show Vikings. It has outlasted several coaches and at least one jersey design.
Est. 1981 · National Rugby League
The Green Machine
Canberra's own club in the NRL, out of Queanbeyan and playing home games at GIO Stadium in Bruce. Three premierships, one Viking mascot, and a habit of playing finals footy against clubs three times its market size.
LIVE
Raiders12–10Cronulla Sharks
58′
- 58′ Raiders in front after a Jamal Fogarty penalty goal.
Simulated for this prototype, not a real broadcast feed — follow the actual match on raiders.com.au.
3Premierships
1981Founded
25,000+GIO Stadium capacity
15Players capped for Australia
Latest result
Raiders 24 – 30 Newcastle Knights
A wet-weather arm-wrestle that slipped away in the closing stages. It was the Raiders' second loss on the bounce after a run of form earlier in the month — the full trend, round by round, is on the Recent Form page.
12th on the ladder after Round 23. Round 24 against Cronulla is under way right now (above); next up after that is home to the Brisbane Broncos at GIO Stadium in Round 25.
Fan folklore
Terrace wisdom, not official club history — nobody's fact-checking a chant. Background photography credited in full in the gallery below.
Home-ground advantage, meteorological division. A Canberra night game in July is the closest the NRL gets to an away fixture in Antarctica. Visiting Queensland forwards have opinions about this. So do their calf muscles.
Ricky's press conferences. Part post-match summary, part state-of-the-union address. Journalists have learned to bring a second coffee and cancel whatever was next on the calendar.
“So close.” The unofficial club motto since the 2019 grand final went to golden point. Worn with more pride than the scoreline probably justifies.
It's actually Queanbeyan. Founded just across the NSW border in 1981, home games played in Bruce, ACT — and every Sydney commentator still finds a way to call it “the bush capital's team.”
On the field
Openly-licensed rugby league action, credited below — not photos from the specific Raiders fixtures described on this site. The club's own match photography isn't available under a licence this site can reuse, so these stand in as illustrative shots of the game rather than documentation of any particular Raiders win.
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