BY DAN
The steadying of the long-ship carrying the Canberra Raiders 2024 season has occurred at the hands of someone old and someone new. Both Elliott Whitehead and Kaeo Weekes have taken on jobs they wouldn’t have anticipated, performed them well, and allowed people around them space to flourish. It’s the kind of thing you can build a club around.

When Elliott Whitehead’s impending retirement was announced we understood. This is a man that has played near 400 games of professional football. He’d been playing every minute of every game since he joined the club, throwing his body into every problem and moment the club needed. Over time he lost a step, and injuries started to play a bigger role in his life. Time is a prick like that.

Coming into this year it seemed most likely he’d play a bit part this season. Zac Hosking was meant to take over his spot on the right edge. Smell would still start and be captain but his replacement had been found. We only got to briefly see how this would happen, but in round three he played twenty minutes on the edge at the beginning of the game, then thirteen at lock at the end. 34 minutes. For a guy who’d spent the last few years with a look like a hungover Dad trying to quieten down toddlers at 6am, this was as good as being put out to pasture.

It lasted one game. First because of an injury to him and an elongated absence, and then an injury to Zack Hosking. Simi Sasagi unsurprisingly hadn’t learned the position he only just started playing and Ata Mariota was always meant to be a bit-part solution. So when Whitehead returned to the team against Manly it was because there was no other option. Hey Elliott, remember how you spent the previous eight years wearing your soul to a nub and your bones to even less? Can you do it for a little bit longer?

And what’s he’s done over the last two games is amazing. He’s been instrumental in fixing the defensive deficiencies on the edge. He’s somehow played a hand in three tries over that period, which for a side that isn’t exactly finding points easy right now is impressive. And even his ability and willingness to engage in a bit of gamesmanship to wear down the clock against the Dogs in instrumental of his worth to the side.

Like Elliott, Kaeo Weekes wasn’t meant to be a halfback this year. He’d spent the off-season in a battle royale for the six jersey with Ethan Strange. It was a very different job. Being the second-man to Fogarty, letting him run the team around the park and chip in with a bit of excitement every now and then. It was a small but fun role. Strange won it, and for a while there it seemed like Weekes had come to Canberra to be a backup, just as he’d been at Manly.

When Jamal Fogarty went down it was perhaps even more troubling than losing Zac Hosking. Fogarty was playing career footy, using his prodigious right boot like a cartoon piano dropping on the heads of unsuspecting enemies at the end of each Canberra set. He was a leader on-and-off the park. The side went where it did because he pointed them in that direction. Ethan Strange flourished because as an 18 year old all he had to do was focus on was making his tackles and doing the things he’s good at. Someone had to do the admin work and Fog had his clip board out and was ticking off tasks.

His forlorn face sitting on the sidelines of the Broncos game was mirrored by thousands of Raiders fans. The world was crashing down around the club. When they scored the same amount of points as me or you against the Sharks in the next round despondency reigned. Was this all going to fall apart because of the cruel arc of fate and injury? What’s preparation if the balance of luck is balanced like a see-saw?

If Fogarty left a void in on-field guardianship then Weekes has stepped into that role in the last two weeks. He’s taken on the role of on-field guide, sacrificing his own preferences and the role he trained to play this off-season for a less exciting but arguably more important role. He’s made sure Canberra got to smart places on the field. His right boot has become the knock-off version of the real thing, but like so many versions of brand name products it works if you squint. He’s even chipped in with some electric play, like his chip that resulted in Nic Cotric’s try against Manly, or the scoop-and-shoot off the back of Trey Mooney’s offload that ended being Hudson Young’s game-winner.

Canberra have needed these two players to step up. One, an old stager draining the effort from his body like it he’s rinsing his soul every time he takes the field. The other a player just trying to find a way in, to prove he’s meant to be there, that he’s worthy. In both the Raiders have players ensuring that they have not lost pace with this season.

These sorts of efforts from players not meant to be first choice are often what define seasons. Players putting egos or personal preferences aside to do what it takes for the team. I’d like to think they’re also part of how club’s build cultures, showing each generation that collective success is built by making something greater than the sum of the parts. Given the number of young fellas around, and the transition occurring from one generation to the next, I hope what Whitehead and Weekes are exemplifying right now is something that can carry on.

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