BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders are starting a new era. On the field the discussion has been about a break from the past; new players bring new ideas. As we’ve noted it’s been heartening to see. The trajectory isn’t so much up, as multilinear. Anything is possible. But an on-field mindset change need to be matched by continuing to innovate how things are done off the field.

When you’re not a big club you need to find other avenues to do things. Cheaper ways, yes. But also different paths to the same place. Avenues to deliver the same (or better) outcomes by leveraging the fact you’re not restricted by the same ideas, norms, and structures that swallow up bigger clubs in Sydney. Sometimes it’s finding better ways to do things for less money, or simply being willing to try ideas that sit at the fringes of football thought because the bright lights of the media have less power in Canberra, and the stability of employment for the coaching staff can sustain a failed shot at the moon. It can apply to sports science and injury management, but also to how you use data to inform game and stylistic management (hello moneyball).

For the Raiders this has often revealed itself in looking in different areas for talent (like they’ve done in country NSW, Queensland, the Pacific, England and even Sierra freaking Leone). When the regular fishing holes already have nine teams with lines in the water you might want to find a new place to talk shit and drink whisky (I don’t get fishing, but whisky and yarns is good). There was a period in the golden era where the club basically reinvented attacking rugby league. But these examples of being willing to try new and different things hasn’t always been pervasive throughout the club’s history.

A stark example was offered (accidently) by Corey Horsburgh noted in his recent Bloke in the Bar interview. In the lead up to his first season he was told to train through plantar fasciitis in what was essentially an attempt to ‘harden him up’.

My first proper NRL season.. Just a lot of contact, a lot of running. Not much like,…science behind it. They would just run you like a dog….I remember my first year I got like plantar fasciitis…and they didn’t care. I had to keep running with it. It was tough.

Corey Horsbrugh to Bloke in the Bar.

As host Denan Kemp noted it was ‘old school’. As Horsburgh intimated it was hardly a scientific approach ensuring a debilitating injury was properly healed before a long season. It did have benefits as Horsburgh noted – instilling mental fortitude in young players – and both the host and Corey agreed it served him well in the long-term.

There was also an implication that was a moment in time and that the Raiders have moved beyond that. But it was indicative that the club under Coach Stuart has had a more traditional approach to how they’ve operated. At times this has served them well, such as their tremendous 2019, built on the exact kind of mental toughness that training was meant to imbue in them.

But at others it hasn’t. In 2021 they failed to adjust to the unilateral obsession with ‘pace’ over ‘footy’ that came with Peter V’Landys. They were slow to adapt to reluctance to adopt a more innovative approach, or at least a capacity to adapt and adjust, and instead relied on experientially reinforced approaches. In 2023 it felt eerily similar; their ability to tough out wins only just compensating for a football style built for a pre-pandemic world.

Recently they’ve taken steps that may suggest this is changing. They’ve built an incredibly fancy high performance training headquarters, reportedly the envy of the league. The training staff has also seen substantial turnover and as far as we can tell (which, to be fair is kinda like asking a blind man how many fingers your holding up) has managed injuries appropriately. But these steps haven’t been matched in other areas. If there’s been an embrace of data it hasn’t been spoken of. If there’s been an innovation of playing style we haven’t noticed. it.

It would take a brave person to suggest this old school mindset has gone away and it may be there as long as Coach Stuart is. With injury management we’ve seen him repeatedly reference the need for players to manage the physical challenge of the season, playing ‘hurt’ (different to injured, as anyone who’s ever played contact will be familiar with). In performance it’s been occasionally reported that he tends to go with what he knows rather than any reliance on data as an input. Perhaps his reported desire for personnel and stylistic change this summer is chasing innovation. More likely it’s an experienced coach looking around and seeing the tea-leaves for what they are.

Of course there’s always a balancing act. The rugby league season is long and players bodies take a beating. If every malady was met with rest and recovery then they’d need a much bigger roster than 30 (many teams use more than 30 players in a season anyway). And if you want to insert the latest and greatest sports science into everything you do, you need to not only spend more money on collecting that data, but employing people to assess it. It can be expensive. Given the financial pressure on the club in recent years (hello ‘rona!) and the fact that it doesn’t have access to the corporate largesse that Sydney clubs do, it’s understandable that they’ve relied on experiential rather than theoretical when it comes to what works.

But there’s an opportunity here if they can find the resources to explore it, or a way to explore it without needing the same resources. Mine the data. Move beyond the known. Take the risk of trying new ways of doing things. The problem here is that the Raiders would not be a first-mover, hamstrung by the need of scale of catch up, particular in the adoption of sports science and data informed innovation. Even the freaking Ipswich Jets may be ahead of them in some sense. It’s a common problem for small economies clubs trying to play catch up. If they move to late they have to find a way to go beyond what the big clubs have already done. It would be naive to think the Roosters, Panthers, Broncos et al have watched the data revolution take hold of US sport and done nothing. The paradox is that requires the money and ambition smaller entities struggle to amass.

Perhaps this is the logic of standing still and relying on the winds of years past to whisper a way forward. Staying zigged while everyone zags in the knowledge that no matter how hard to you go down their path you’ll just be chasing their dust. Be the only club that builds through vibes and emotion. It’s one way to do things.

But Canberra have been at their best in the past when they’ve looked where others wouldn’t, played a style of footy that took rugby league in new directions. Entering a new era there’s been discussions about embracing something different on the field. That should be matched off the field too.

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