BY DAN

The good people in the Canberra Raiders front office got through a bit of house cleaning today, announcing already reported deals for Chevy Stewart, Danny Levi and Adrian Trevilyan.

Each of these deals has been known for a little while, but it’s always good to get official confirmation. But with this certainty we actually got a bit of an eyebrow-raising detail we otherwise wouldn’t know until much later: Adrian Trevilyan’s one year deal is as part of the development squad.

For those of you not ensconced in rugby league roster minutiae, each season clubs name a top 30 player group. They also have four development players that sit outside the 30. The intent of this is to allow the club to keep future talent tied to the first grade squad rather than them drifting in the breeze of cup footy (and into the eye line of competitors). Those development players cannot play NRL footy before round 11 of the season (instead spending their time in Cup footy). So as it stands Trevilyan won’t be playing first grade until mid-May next year at the earliest.

This is a imperfect position for Trevilyan, and the Raiders, to be in. As you’d be well aware he’s currently number two on a depth chart of four rakes at the club. While the club might think that a healthy Danny Levi, an in-form Tom Starling and a handsome Zac Woolford are ahead of him on the list, there demonstrably exists a world in which he’s preferred to at least one of them right now (and potentially two depending on your feelings about Danny Levi). Restricting the ability of one of your best two hookers to play through the first 11 rounds seems a curious way to start the season.

So forgive our conspiracy brain but our unhinged vibe (is there a better kind?) is that there is undoubtedly something more to this than the club not seeing him as a top 30 player. Hell he was a top 30 player this year and that was while injured. Since his return he’s proven that hunch to be correct and shown that the hopes of Trevilheads weren’t far fetched.

The most obvious starting point is wondering how this is influenced by a need to maximise the roster in other directions. In this circumstance instead of carrying four 9s in the top 30, they’ve instead created room, presumably to allow for a focus on the challenge of finding backrowers and five-eighths. This is proving beyond the Milk’s recruitment at the moment, perhaps because of the dearth of perfect solutions (something noted by Don Furner Jr during the week). Because the Raiders can’t find a perfect solution perhaps they want to open up roster spots for multiple shots. Maybe they’re keeping Trevilyan out of the 30 to maintain that flexibility. One might suggest better places to find that roster flexibility (and it rhymes with “I scat poorly”) but perhaps they’ve managed to kill two birds and have their cake too.

Indeed a “glass half full” assessment is that this situation is about keeping Trevilyan around while they manage the mix of their roster over the next few months. In this thinking they’d see how they go on the free agent market, and still be able to upgrade him if they don’t fill all their spots. This deal may allow them to offer him an upgraded deal before 1 November (i.e when other teams can talk to him) if his form at the back end of the season makes him a target for other teams. Call it a placeholder contract. I guess we’ll see.

But this is a risk, opening him up to greater likelihood of departure and less development time for him in first grade if they don’t upgrade him. While there’s a recognition that Adrian’s body needs time to prove it’s ready to rock it seems counterproductive to limit this to Cup footy, even if it’s in the short term. If his proves himself physically ready through the back half of this season there seems little reason to hold him back. He’s good enough already. He just needs experience playing with the best.

Regardless of my concern it’s still undoubtedly a good thing that Trevilyan remains with the team. More flexibility is better than less, and my vibes-based assessment is that both Trevilyan and the Raiders are aware that they want him to be here in the long term. And that’s the main thing.

Shouts to JB from the Green Machine Podcast and Raiders afficiando Dave Ray for tipping me off to the development aspect of the deal. Do me a favour and like the page on Facebook,  follow me on Twitter, or share this on social media because love is true and heaven is a Raiders victory. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.