BY DAN

Corey Horsburgh is having a rough time and he’s not helping himself.

Call it a truncated 2024. He’s barely played at all in 2024, let alone in first grade. That’s not going to get better, with the announcement that he would miss three weeks suspension coming from punches thrown in NSW Cup on Saturday.

It capped what can politely be called a frustrating year for the Horse. He started the year publicly admitting he was out of shape, a mindset created by a suspension stemming from the end of 2023. When he came back he unsurprisingly found himself injured. It wouldn’t be the first time a player who hadn’t put the work in over the offseason found themselves in a similar situation (though it was the first time a player had been so brazenly honest about it). He then tried to make his way back to first grade, got injured again, got sick, and missed more games.

To cap that with a brain snap like he had on the weekend (and make no mistake, it wasn’t Corey’s finest moment) is frustrating for Corey, and for the club that could desperately use his particularly set of skills. We’ve made a lot about the need the Raiders have for width and better defence through the middle third. We’ve made a lot about how exhausted Morgan Smithies looks, having taken on Horsburgh’s role in his absence; one way that could be fixed is by Big Red not being absent. Work with me here, the maths is difficult.

If we’re trying to be overly fair, one could make the argument that some of these absences could be blamed, at least in part, on the club potentially rushing him back to top line footy before he was ready through the middle rounds. Perhaps they could have given him more time in Cup footy to avoid further injury. Perhaps they could have been more involved in his off-season program, finding ways to make sure he was motivated despite starting the first few weeks watching from the sideline. Early in the year Coach Stuart went lengths to publicly back Corey in the media. Perhaps an old school stick was needed to get the best out of the carrot-top.

This may be true but it doesn’t absolve Horsburgh from the majority of responsibility for his situation. While the club is responsible for getting him into training environments they can’t control every aspect of his life, and they certainly can’t stop him from throwing punches in Cup footy.

It’s not the kind of behaviour (or dare I say it, level of maturity) you would expect from a representative level forward. It reflects a mindset that is frustrated and upset at his season. When it emerged last week he wanted out his management jumped on it, taking the unusual action of giving a quote to media in order to dispel the fact, and just to reiterate he was having a tough time. As his manager told the Canberra Times:

He wants to play football. It’s his life. He’s just had a bad run with injury, but they need him on the field

While in a sense it was a rebuttal and reported as such by the Canberra Times it was hardly robust. He may want to play footy but it’s pretty clear that most of the obstacle to that has been in his hands (figuratively, and after this weekend, literally). It’s not the first time he’s found himself upset with his situation in Canberra – in the past he also admitted that he was frustrated during the 2021 season with his lack of game time, and almost didn’t come back from the Bulldogs when on loan there.

One can’t help but look at the club’s chase of Stefano Utoikamanu, the sometimes Origin representative in this context, either as an input or an output. The club looks at Horsburgh’s questionable professionalism and looks for a more certain upgrade. It’s also not hard to see it contributing to Corey’s general frustration with life. Many will also point to the selection of Jordan Martin in first grade, ahead of Corey, as evidence of the club trying to send him a message. If it was a message his reaction isn’t what the club would have wanted.

Look, I make no bones about being an unabashed fan of Horsburgh. We’ve noted the club could use his skills right now but I also think it needs him over the long-term as the bridge between the Tapine/Papalii generation of middles and the Mooney/Mariota generation. He’s an unusual middle – not as powerful as his fiery personality and red hair suggest. But he’s an agile runner, a skilled passer and a workhorse in defence. He’s the kind of player you can build a pack around. He has an opportunity in the coming years to be a leader but let’s be frank, right now leadership is an ill-fitting crown. He clearly needs to, in the parlance of rugby league, get that shit out of his game.

I don’t think the clock has run out on Corey’s time in Canberra. Not yet at least. As I said we’ve been here before, even if we didn’t necessarily know it at the time. Right now I think the club wants him, and as frustrated as it is, the best place for Big Red is in Canberra. There hasn’t been much public comment from the club (notably different to what occurred when similar rumours bounded forth about Emre Guler this week). That can give you succour that he’ll stay or be the proof you need about camel backs and load-bearing straws.

I hope this is a moment for Red. The moment he realises he can’t just waltz his way to excellence every year. That rather than something you ascend to once and then reside there, greatness is earned every moment of your professional life. There’s simply too many people trying too hard to be good at rugby league. You can’t skate through on past acheivements.

And you can’t go around punching people in the head.

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