BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders revamp continued in week three, They didn’t win but it was further evidence that whatever they’ve done in the off-season has brought a different dimension to the side.

We’ve noted a few things so far this season using the old fashioned eye test but these are hardly comprehensive. More poke on the edges, incredible kicking and a middle that came here to kick ass and drink milk (and they’re all out of milk). These factors have been present but there’s more to the story. Thankfully rugby league’s answer to Kirk Goldsworthy, our favourite website the Rugby League Eye Test, put some meat on the bones of what has changed for the Raiders in 2024.

For starters they’ve been far more balanced in 2024 than previously. We thought this was a possibility. After Jack Wighton became the starting five-eighth in 2019, the attack tended to flow in that direction. With his departure they’ve seen a rebalancing. As the Rugby League Eye Test puts it:

They’ve had 4% more play the balls on the right inner tram tack, and 3.5% more on the outer tram track, and another 2.2% more on the right wing. That’s almost 10% more play the balls on the right hand side of the field this season.

That’s only through the first two games, so take it with all the salt in Ontario. But in a sense that’s to be expected. Wighton’s departure is part of this story but it also speaks to the strengths that sit on the right. Their prime playmaker spends most of his time there, their best strike weapon (Matt Timoko) as well as a marked improvement in their running option at backrower. Further contributing is Jordan Rapana’s presence at fullback: there’s nothing he loves more than a short side raid down the right.

It’s consequentially meant that Ethan Strange’s touches have been 22, 24 and 31, well below the mid-40s that Jack Wighton would typically get at the position. That will likely change as Strange’s role expands over the year, and perhaps as teams key-in on Fogarty, particularly on kicking plays late in tackle counts. But for now it’s meant that the Raiders are far less ‘left-side obsessed’ than in recent years. That seems like a good thing to me.

A related matter but arguably a more surprising one is that Canberra have been able to play with much greater width than last year. The Raiders play the balls in the middle third have dropped by over 10 per cent year-to-year, and at 56 per cent in 2024 were among the lowest in the competition after two rounds. They’ve gone from top half of the league to second least number of middle-focused plays. Again, it’s only two rounds of counting (though it felt to me that they played with plenty of width the longer the Warriors game went on).

I don’t think this means that Canberra has abandoned it’s middle strength. We saw against the Warriors in round three that they are still keen to start with the basics in terms of cracking a defence apart. But these numbers suggest they’re more willing and able to get wide, and play wide, than last year.

These sets of numbers are a small sample. What’s an even smaller sample is where that has resulted in tries. In 2023 Canberra’s try location (according to statsinsider.com.au) was pretty evenly balanced between the edges and the middle. They scored 30 per cent of their tries through the middle third (with an even 35 on each of the other edges). So far this season the numbers aren’t statistically meaningful (5 on the left, 3 in the middle and 4 on the right by my very rough count) but worth keeping an eye on. It could reveal a desire to set up right in order to shift left. It could be an anomaly driven by me counting something on the tram tracks as in or out of the middle.

If there’s one place a bit of width has been routinely called for it’s in their red zone possessions. Canberra have struggled in recent years to put find a way to crack goal-line defences. Ten of the Raiders twelve tries so far this season have begun in the opposition twenty, so it’s important to get this right. But despite improvements in other facets of the game they’ve still felt like finding a way through in close quarters has proven inefficient.

They’ve spent 74 minutes in the opposition twenty this season for 10 tries over three games (just over 24 minutes a game, or 7.4 minutes try). For comparison the Panthers have spent an average of about 25 minutes a game in the redzone through four games (100 minutes total) for 15 tries (6.6 minutes per try). Many have 80 minutes there for 13 tries (6.1 minutes a try). The Cows have 19 tries in 74 minutes (3.9 minutes a try) (these numbers taken from Champion data). While time is an imperfect measure (if only someone publicly reported opposition twenty tackles), and it’s a small sample size heavily influenced by one game against a very good Warriors defence, it does show that the close-quarters fighting is something the team is still working on. Someone call Ra’s Al Ghul (or Zac Woolford).

Look this is hardly comprehensive. So far we’ve seen a greater willingness to play right, and play with width. We’ve learned that it may not have solved the Milk’s lack of efficiency in attack. As we’ve noted these a incredibly small sample sizes, but they’re indicative of a possible trend, and worth checking back in later in the year to see if this was a blip or a signal. Maybe the Raiders lose their nerve. Maybe the playbook expands with the wider variety of options being pursued. At the very least it will be interesting to watch.

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