Coach Ricky Stuart glowingly compared Ethan Strange to Raiders legend Laurie Daley after the 20-year-old's try-scoring hat-trick helped the hosts repel a Manly ambush and add to the Sea Eagles' woes with a 28-12 win in chilly Canberra on Friday night.
Rebounding from a shock first defeat in 10 starts last week against St George Illawarra, the Raiders' pivotal win knocked Melbourne off a perch the Storm only enjoyed for 24 hours after Thursday night's 22-2 triumph over Brisbane.
With the purring Panthers entering the top four for the first time all season after extending their own mid-season winning run to nine games earlier on Friday with a 48-12 rout in Newcastle, fans are daring to dream of a repeat of the classic 1990 and 1991 title deciders.
With a favourable run home, Canberra remain warm favourites to secure a first-week final in the national capital, quite possibly against the four-time defending premiers from Penrith.
But Manly's troubles only deepen, especially for under-siege coach Anthony Seibold.
After threatening to inflict a first-ever Friday night defeat on the Raiders in the freezing national capital in July or August, the Sea Eagles now need to win their last four games to have a hope of scraping into the finals.
As well as potentially slipping two wins outside of the top eight with only four rounds remaining, Manly have also likely lost Jake Trbojevic for two games after their inspirational skipper suffered a category one concussion in a nasty second-half collision with Josh Papalii."Yeah, it is hard to watch. He cares so much about the team," Seibold said.
"Josh Papalii is one of the biggest players in the competition and Jake goes down there and he's trying to turn the tide for us and ...
"The good thing is, he's sitting up inside the dressing room there.
"But it's category one, so he'll definitely miss next week. That might be the third (concussion) this season so it's really disappointing for him and us.
"We're already missing six or seven forwards."
Trbojevic's setback came in between the Raiders running in two tries in nine minutes to turn a precarious four-point lead into a match-winning buffer at GIO Stadium.
A length-of-the-field team effort finished off by superstar fullback Tom Trbojevic in the third minute and a Tolutau Koula strike early in the second half had cancelled out Strange's opening five-pointer and one to slippery winger Xavier Savage.
But that's when Strange took the game by the scruff off the neck.
First he took on and beat the Manly defence to storm over in the 54th minute.
Then Strange skilfully reeled in a spectacular flick pass from coach Stuart's son Jed down the left wing to realistically put the game beyond Manly's reach.
"He's got qualities of a representative player already as a young person and I don't say that outlandishly," Stuart said.
"For a young player such as Ethan to be able to give off energy to his teammates is similar to Laurie Daley when Laurie was a young player."
The only concern for Canberra was hard-nosed lock Corey Horsburgh being placed on report for a senseless later shoulder charge on Manly hooker Jazz Tevaga.
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