BY DAN

Josh Papalii is sticking around another year, with the Sydney Morning Herald reporting the Raiders have picked up his 2025 option. It has now been confirmed by the Canberra Times as official.

This is unequivocally good news, and a long way from our pre-season speculation that he might be hanging it up after this season. Papalii is a critical elder statesmen. It is slightly surprising – most reporting had suggested that option was dependent on him getting through 75 percent of his games in 2023 and 2024. That obviously hasn’t happened yet.

The club is evidently happy that he’s worth whatever risk comes from an extra year and its evident that is driven by what he’s doing on the field. He is generally the Raiders second most effective ball-runner in the middle, still able to play with agility and power. He averages 108m a game in around 40 minutes a game, has more tackle breaks this season than any Canberra forward and has only missed three tackles all season (according to Fox sports). That he’s doing that at near 32 is impressive, and suggests the risk for him to go around another season is minor. Make no mistake this is an on-field decision. That he’s offering leadership, continuity and a warm feeling deep in the soul of every Canberra fan is only more reason to keep him around.

At the risk of angering the rugby league gods this ‘extension’ should mean that he goes past 300 games and Jarrod Croker on the Raiders all-time game list, and close to Jason Croker’s 318. If he did that it would certainly mean that he’d get a stand named after him at a new Raiders stadium (wherever that may be). The man has given us so much, terrorising Paul Gallen, winning accolades around the league, being the best at his position, and even given us the Best Moment. He’s been a one-club man. They should build the man a statue, at the very least they can give him one more year.

I haven’t seen this in the general discourse yet but I do wonder if some may suggest moving on Papalii, either out of some misguided ‘what’s next’ policy or in order to provide a clearer path for Trey Mooney to stay. Pushing out Papalii out, either for Mooney or a more nebulous concept of youth seems more like building a take than a team. It ignores the reality of where both players are at (i.e. that Papalii is still very good, and Mooney isn’t competing with him, but rather other players for time and opportunity). It also downplays the importance of Papalii as a leader and mentor to young players, and the potential clubhouse chaos pushing him out could cause. There’s arguably no-one more important to recent Raiders lore than Big Papa. Whatever risk exists is mitigated by the shortness of the deal. In fact if there is a connection to a Mooney deal it’s more likely the other way around – that Papa’s option was picked up because the club is increasingly concerned Mooney is going elsewhere.

The front office has certainly been busy and they’ll need to stay it. There’s still the matters of Trey Mooney and Ethan Sanders to solve, not to mention other players with options or ending deals that decisions have yet to be announced on. We’ll be keeping a close eye on those because we’re sickos like you.

But for right now it’s worth celebrating. Canberra’s favourite human is sticking around.

Do us a solid and like our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or share this on social media because we got it like that. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.