Bus-ted Canberra Vikings miss ride but beat Melbourne Rising

The Vikings were left stranded at their team hotel less than an hour before kickoff and were forced to take taxis and Ubers to Box Hill Rugby Club.

Their late arrival did little to affect their performance as they kicked off their NRC campaign to a perfect start with a 47-22 demolition of the Melbourne Rising on Saturday.

It took just eight minutes for Nick Scrivener's side to mark the scoreboard as Brumby Toni Pulu charged through the defensive line to set-up Irae Simone's opening try.

The Vikings went on to score another four unanswered tries as Pulu and Mack Hansen created headaches for the Rising's outside-backs.

Canberra's left edge used the full-length of the field to break down Melbourne's defence, with the pair scoring a try apiece.

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Pulu played with a point to prove after being left out of the Wallabies squad, but credited the Vikings' forward pack for spreading the ball wide.

"The forwards did a good job of getting us the ball clean and we just finished it off from them," Pulu said.

"We needed to earn the right to go wide and I was just lucky enough to be at the end of some of the good work done by the forwards."

Samu carried Canberra's dominance through to the second-half and scored two minutes after the opening whistle. The Wallaby danced around Melbourne's Michael Moloney to score on the left-wing.

The Rising trailed by 30-points but fired back after bringing Wallaby Tetera Faulkner off the bench to reinvigorate their attack.

Justin Masters, Semisi Tupou and Ross Haylett-Petty scored three tries in the last 25 minutes but the Vikings punished their efforts with a 100 metre try.

A turnover in Canberra's defensive end saw Tom Wright sprint down the middle and received an offload from Pulu to score with five minutes remaining.

"The conditions didn't favour free-flowing football so to score a try like that from a transition really showed what the boys can do," Scrivener said.

"We have a lot of speed in our backline and hopefully that [try] gives us confidence for when the conditions are right."

NRC

Round one: CANBERRA VIKINGS 47 (Irae Simone, Mack Hansen, Andy Muirhead, Toni Pulu, Noah Lolesio, Tom Wright tries; Ryan Lonergan 6 conversions) bt MELBOURNE RISING 22 (Justin Marsters, Semisi Tupou, Ross Haylett-Petty tries; Michael Moloney 2 conversions)