BY DAN

Our off-season series this year will be on the key problems that the Raiders must address now and into the future in order for the 2024 season, and those beyond. If you missed Part I on the hooking situation you can read it here. Part II on the number of touches Jamal Fogarty needs to succeed can be found here. Part III on the middle rotation can be found here.

Over the next 12 months the Canberra Raiders have a chunk of players coming off contract or entering free-agency.

This list is long. 19 of the top 30 players are either free agents now or hit the market on 1 November (plus Adrian Trevilyan!). It sounds like a lot but this itself isn’t unusual. Rugby league is seemingly a game played over two year cycles, with only the most crucial of players offered security beyond a brace of campaigns. There’s always a tough decision to make, a critical player to retain. This time last year the numbers were even higher and the club did it’s work to ensure that the right people got the right extensions, and also Danny Levi. This years candidates are no different, and whether or not these players are retained remains a big question for the club.

Some of these decisions are easy; although it’s not clear the club thinks the same way as your humble scribe. There are six players that the club should prioritise in its retention efforts over the next year.

Already on the market

The most obviously of these are also the ones that make me most nervous. Trey Mooney, Zac Woolford and Adrian Trevilyan. All three are currently free agents, and there’s been little positive noise around any of them.

Woolford has been subject to a public to-and-fro with the club which, as reported by Michael Chammas, resulted in him being told to find a new spot and then being told he also can’t leave. Maybe the club finally released Danny ‘the Human Mendoza Line’ Levi isn’t the answer they thought. Woolford has consistently been the best hooker regularly playing and the world remains confused as to why they don’t see it. Even Paul Crawley raised whether Zac was leaving in a recent interview of Stick. There are reports that other clubs are circling. Let’s hope Stick has had a change of heart and is committed; if he hasn’t then decisions further await with Levi and Tom Starling, who both hit the free market at the end of the year.

Adrian Trevilyan must be kept for similar reasons. His body, and his game, is a work in progress but there is little room he can’t work as part of a hooker rotation with Woolford, or the other rakes. He’s got the youth and upside that coach Stuart has repeatedly said he was committed to, but Trevilyan has seemingly be stuck in ongoing supplemental deals, which is kinda like being permanently casual in your workplace. Lock him up.

If Woolford has been all bad news and Trevilyan has been no news is good news with Gary Gnu, then the silence around Trey Mooney has felt like waiting on a jump scare. The club said he was a priority to re-sign before Christmas but there’s been no news, and given Stick’s reluctance to let him play I can understand other clubs coming knocking (shit, Newcastle already did last year). It’s hard to see more time in NSW Cup being an enticing offer for Mooney. More minutes and more years will get the deal done.

Secretly available?

While these are on the market so to speak there are three players that must be retained this year before they hit the market. Hohepa Puru recently signed an extension with the club, but it was a one-and-one deal (one year with the club, one year player option), whereby he not only can enter free agency market as of 1 November, but also can be somewhere else for 2025 if he so chooses. Even if he picks up his option, he’ll still enter the market at the end of the year.

It’d be much better if the club put him on more years as soon as possible. There *should* be a future for him in Canberra. The Raiders need both the scale and nature of his talent. They need his leadership, and they need exactly what he brings to ball-playing to allow them to expand their playing style. There are plenty of ‘pull’ factors calling him back to Sydney, not the least his twin brother’s presence there. If Sticky doesn’t find a spot for him in the 17, playing time at a club more willing to use his vast talents will likely entice.

Get ‘em early

Speaking of getting in before the sharks circle there are two further players the Milk need to lock up before they hit the free agent market. Ethan Strange, potential future of the club, was lured to the club on a three year deal barely over a year ago. He is up for thievery as of 1 November, and depending on what he shows this season could be up for an upgrade. We’ve all seen him play; it would be wise to get him before anyone else gets involved.

This signature is doubly important when you consider it in concert with the rise of Chevy Stewart and potential recruitment of Ethan Sanders. If Strange is a key to the future best give that future time to emerge.

Matt Timoko also hits the market at the end of the year. As we wrote recently he’s already making a name for himself, even if we’re the only people that have noticed. Best lock him down before anyone gets any ideas. The good news is the Milk have the inside running. For now.

What to do?

Those are the easy decisions in a sense. The chase is on (or at least should be) to make sure players. But there are more challenging ones facing the club over the next few years. A key one is pick a winger or two going forward. The club opened talks with James Schiller last year, and theoretically Jordan Rapana is retiring. Nic Cotric is already in the last year of his deal. By the end of this year Albert Hopoate will be the only regular first grade winger guaranteed a job going forward (depending on how your views on Xavier Savage, who is also a free agent as of 1 November).

Does Savage fit alongside Chevy Stewart in the long-term, and has Sticky’s unique man management approach burned a bridge there? Is either James Schiller or Albert Hopoate a long-term first grade winger? Is Nic Cotric ever going to reach the heights of his pre-Bulldogs career? Would they genuinely let someone as talented as Savage go because he’s not a finished product at 21?

Similarly while Canberra seems to have a million middles now, Peter Hola, Hohepa Puru, Trey Mooney and Pasami Saulo are all off contract after this season, and Emre Guler and Josh Papalii are likely to follow. There’s a core to build around – Joey Tapine, Morgan Smithies, Ata Mariota and Corey Horsburgh are on long-term deals – but planets orbiting around these suns aren’t a settled. We’ve mentioned Mooney, and the club apparently started discussions with Saulo last year. Hola has been rumoured to be very popular overseas, but he’s good enough to be on an NRL roster. If you include Guler in this, you almost have pick-n-mix Rorschach test. Just which of these middles is the one you want going forward? Is there space for young players coming through the system like Jake Cyldesdale? How much money do you want to spend on arugably the most replaceable position in the competition.

As difficult as these questions are they are lower order problems. The top six mentioned earlier are either in spine positions, or pseudo spine. The way Puru plays 13 makes him the ‘y’ to the vowels in the spine. Timoko is arguably (in fact, I argued it) the Raiders next ‘star’. And Trey Mooney has been promised for so long it seems almost time to do your business or find a new place to scroll your phone.

Regardless change is coming for the Milk, and it will be interesting to see how the club manages it over the next 12 months. It will be a challenging period for the club, matching on-field change with off-field roster challenges (and that doesn’t even account for the likely flow-on effect if they manage to snare Ethan Sanders). But there are opportunities too. It’s time to get to work.

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