The Raiders earned hosting rights against the Sharks in the first week of the NRL finals after annihilating a stunned Tigers, who blew the chance to reach the top eight for the first time since 2011.
Canberra – who chalked up a 10th straight win, the longest single-season streak in the club's history – embarrassed the Tigers with a 30-point first-half blitz which even had some of the Leichhardt faithful heading for the exits at the break.
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Raiders take second as Tigers bomb
The Raiders will host the Sharks in the first week of finals next weekend after they thrashed a woeful Tigers outfit 52-10 at Leichhardt Oval.
Needing to win to leapfrog the Titans into eighth spot, the Tigers bumbled their way through an awful opening 40 minutes and were never a threat thereafter.
The Raiders will now host Cronulla at Canberra Stadium with the winner only one game away from the grand final.
But they will face a nervous 24 hours after fullback Jack Wighton was placed on report for a shoulder charge on a runaway Joel Edwards late in the game.
The Broncos will host Gold Coast in an all-Queensland elimination final at Suncorp Stadium.
Departing Tigers hooker Robbie Farah, who was officially granted a release on Saturday night paving the way for him to join the Rabbitohs, was given a rousing send-off at half-time as he did a circuit of a ground where he is near universally adored.
But it was about as loud as the Tigers supporters got as their team turned in arguably their worst performance of the year in the game that mattered most.
The Tigers will be grateful not to see the Raiders again until next year after being belted 60-6 in the corresponding fixture in the nation's capital earlier in 2016.
Joey Leilua helped cement Canberra's reputation as the NRL's great entertainers delivering a seen-to-be-believed around-the-back pass for a Jordan Rapana try and also scored himself in the second stanza.
Joe Tapine's late four-pointer made Canberra's 2016 outfit the most prolific in terms of regular-season points in the club's history.
Still missing the injured Blake Austin and Junior Paulo, Ricky Stuart's side took a ruthless attitude into the game by declining to rest any stars – and proved why they are a legitimate premiership contender.
Tim Simona sent the kick-off over the dead-ball line on the full and the afternoon didn't get much better for the joint venture, who were mesmerised by the Raiders' English rake Josh Hodgson.
The Dally M contender scored a try and directly set up two others, including one for Queensland enforcer Josh Papalli who bagged a double, as the Tigers' brittle defence was exposed on the big stage.
Trailing by a seemingly insurmountable 26 points at the break, Tim Grant scored on the back of their first possession in the second half.
But the Tigers never looked like troubling the competition's hottest side, who quickly responded through Leilua and his partner in crime Rapana, who took his season tally to 20 tries.
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