BY DAN

A rumour that had been floating around the rugby league commentariat finally made the papers on the weekend, with Tele reporting the people’s footy team were keen on bringing Junior Tupou home.

Let’s take this with the usual caveats. This is just a rumour of interest. It could be a Raider Raise, Tupou’s agent trying to drum up some interest now that his charger is on the market for a new deal from 2025 (which he can sign now). There’s been plenty written about him without involving the Milk, so safe to say these discussions have been going for a bit. While Canberra might be interested, it might be an interest determined by a willingness for Tupou to come to the club on some insanely team-friendly deal, such as a the minimum, or on a supplemental deal. They may be simply adding their name to a pile to do an agent a favour (hey look, it’s the same company as David Fifita!). The Raiders may have decided they need to collect wingers like they protect against vampire attack. We simply don’t know.

It’s probably understating it to say it’s a bit of a risk from a football perspective. I can see the apple of Tupou. He’s a strong runner – his 80 tackle busts are as much as any Raider outside-back not named Matt ‘Him’ Timoko. His 17 line breaks shun anything the Milk’s anaemic attack produced last season. That’s impressive, particularly given how shithouse (technical term) the Tigers attack was in 2023. But equally he was a standout in just how bad his defence was. While one would rarely blame a winger for the problems created by Wests’ insanity, it’s hard to look past the fact he led the Tigers in line-break causes, try causes, errors and had a tackle efficiency that would make Blake Austin blush (57 per cent). It’s not his fault, but it wouldn’t be his fault with the Milk either. The tries would get scored all the same.

The Raiders may see a star in the making, and bully for them if they do, and are willing to take the gamble. They have lacked attacking punch in their outside backs in recent years, but that’s why they’ve theoretically been developing (and extending) a host of outside backs. Just as they’re getting to the point where they should be ready to take over from Rapana, or even Cotric, the Milk are looking externally? Is Tupou that much better than Hopoate, Schiller, Asomua, or Savage? Is this another project that will require time in a position that simply shouldn’t need this much roster space or organisational attention? Is this an admission of failure? And is it a fix? (answers: yes, unclear, yes, yes, and…maybe?).

Look it’s not a roster killer if the club pulls it off. They’ve taken weirder gambles that have come off (like this guy from the Titans who went on mission and was training with the Brumbies? Jordan something). But we’re being asked yet again to ‘trust us’ by a club that would be saying ‘nah ignore the other 9 outside backs we have. This is the guy!’ At what point do we feel silly for writing “well I guess they got more depth” when they’re already knees deep? How can you take another gamble when there’s a roster full of them?

As we’ve pointed out before it doesn’t mean they’re not trying to get signatures for more important positions. Negotiations with lower status players usually can progress from rumour to dotted lines more quickly because “do you want a job or not” is not a particularly complex question to answer. But it’s hard when they keep ‘monitoring’ various situations at the Cowboys like I monitor an 8-leg multi, and then rumours like this turn up. Like my dawg Ricky III said, my kingdom for a right-edge backrower.

But hey, while we wait for one, what’s another gamble on a winger between friends?

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