BY DAN

Like everyone else on the Raiders, Joe Tapine probably played his worst game of the season last weekend.

Before that he was quietly having a career year. Again. Among props he’s currently second in the league in metres, third in offloads. His role has involved to include more passing (he’s had 161 possessions this year and run on only 122, meaning he passes a quarter of the time he touches the ball). The 172 metres he’s cranking out each game is a career high. He’s doing this on the back of the two best years of his career (and back-to-back Mal Meninga medals). You could say he’s safely entrenched in his prime, only he’s getting better.

We should be so lucky. Even before Jamal Fogarty, Zac Hosking, Jordan Rapana, Corey Horsburgh etc etc were injured Tapine and the other middles were critical to Canberra’s way of working. Central to their platform this year has been Tapine quietly chugging along, usually dragging three or four defenders on his back and inexplicably keeping his legs moving. He’s so unwilling to be brought down one would think he’s allergic to the grass.

Then last week he was mortal. Missed a few tackles. ‘Only’ had 130 odd metres on the ground. Was the old Tapine (which is different but better than the old Kanye). The side fell apart around him. He took ownership after the game, said it was on him amongst other things, and that he, and the playing group needed to take ownership of what they put forward. It was heartening to see him take responsibility for being human for a week. I hope the rest of the team did the same.

A star forward having an imperfect game could be overcome by other sides, but given his output basically doubles every other Canberra middle not named Josh Papalii, it’s not something they can easily manage.

We all noticed Joe wasn’t good (and we talked about it when I appeared on the Green Machine Podcast this week). It speaks to the fact that Tapine being otherworldly no long seems remarkable. It’s a feature of the system, an expectation, factored and accounted for. When he’s anything less it has both a profound appearance and impact.

But it’s more than that. In recent years his prime has coincided with him becoming an cultural and emotional leader for the team. For a couple of years now it’s felt like Taps has been captain in everything but the actual denotation on the team list. This season he’s been filling in for Elliott Whitehead, noteworthy in that he jumped Jamal Fogarty for that role. Tapine has been clear in his desire to be leader without upsetting the hot-dog-cart (seriously who’s ever seen an apple cart). That opportunity came forth with Whitehead’s injury and evidently it’s not a weight on his shoulders.

Coach Stuart has noticed. As he noted to the Canberra Times recently, Tapine is a crucial and beloved leader for the Raiders.

He’s worked towards our culture and standards here – he’s a big driver of that… I think he enjoys being that leader and captain, and as much as Joe enjoys it I think the players enjoy having him there as their leader too.

The least we can do is be grateful that we have a player of this calibre quietly being the foundation of a team, on and off the field, that greater success can be built from. Much is made of Canberra’s future but it’s present is by a man quietly leading them while playing as well as any prop has for the Green Machine.

But the Raiders were so off the pace last week they need him to be perfect this week. It’s not fair and maybe not physically possible. Here we are demanding he be a different animal and the same beast. Tapine is plagued by the unholy trinity of expectation, being a leader, and being a Raider. We desperately need more from him, right now, to stabilise the side, to take the pressure off young players, to drag this side back to relevance, to find a cure for cancer. We need last week, in which he had a few glaringly poor moments, to be the extreme ying to this weeks maximal yang. And then maybe, just maybe the Milk can find a way to compete. It’s too much to ask.

Still, I reckon Tapine will find a way.

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