IMAGINE, if you can, that the Canberra Raiders win the comp.

As I sit here at CUA Stadium reflecting on their 24-22 third qualifying final win over Penrith, it isn't so hard to do.

We hacks might be getting stale and cynical and burnt out by September but ... I mean ... what an effing great time of year this is! The Sydney Roosters-Wests Tigers game goes for 100 minutes and when the NRL man on hand at Penrith is asked how this will affect kick-off here, he says they're "playing it by ear''.

A minute's silence really does go for a minute as field goal attempts across town spew off boots in all directions. Eventually, kick-off here comes 15 minutes late and Fox Sports has a quarter-hour of exclusive finals football to show as a result - because Nine missed it.

Unless you follow Penrith, you could not help but leave CUA with a warm glow. It's not every day that a player dedicates his man-of-the-match performance to the courage of mothers in child birth.

That's what Terry Campese did, in honour of two-day old Billie and his partner Sarah. As he posed for pictures on the way to the bus, his was a pure, wholesome, unadulterated brand of joy that those of us who have never been parents cannot really comprehend.

It's not often that players and fans embrace so much, for so long, after a game that a fence collapses.

The Raiders have not won a finals series match for 10 years. They haven't won one in Sydney for longer. They are the first side to win six games in a row this season.

And so without offending the other seven clubs which are still technically in the running, I want to say this: the Canberra Raiders are probably the only one left who can make us completely forget about the Shit Storm.

Call them Storm-away.

What better way to overshadow a team that gets $6 million a year from a media organisation and pays players with dodgy accounting than have a side sponsored by the CMFEU that always seems to be penny-pinching win the 2010 premiership?

A club with talented juniors coming out its ears but a persecution complex that runs so deep it thought its star fullback had already signed with the Sydney Roosters.

Until he re-signed with them.

A mob that gives reporters vouchers for the canteen instead of catering the press box. A joint that took a stand and sacked Todd Carney, only for him to come back and win the Dally M medal playing for someone else.

A place where the players know the fans and the fans know the players. Where they still go to the club for a beer after the game. Where the coach is the brother of the chief executive and the bloke who ran the joint in 1982 still has a say.

And a group of players who don't just stick the ball under their arms for five tackles and kick. Blokes who actually see it as their responsibility to entertain.

For anything that is still bad about rugby league, the Raiders can cancel it out with something good. Rugby league doesn't need saving, but if it did Canberra could do the job.

Imagine there's no Melbourne. It's easy if you try. No rorts below us. Above us only sky. Imagine all the Raiders. Living for today.