BY DAN

Last week the Canberra Raiders got awful news in the quietest way. Pasami Saulo wouldn’t be playing the rest of the season, the result of an ongoing struggle with that most devilish of injuries in his back.

The reports are he’ll be back in the pre-season which is undeniably good news. Obviously I’m not a doctor (but I do watch a lot of House, surprisingly probbo with the passage of time), but the nature of backs is that surgery is only undertaken when all other options are exhausted. Saulo has been out since round eight trying to find other ways to fix the problem. Alas here we are.

Before we get carried away with what it means for the club it’s worth acknowledging what this means for Saulo. He came to Canberra looking to rebuild a promising career that had been delayed by a horrendous leg injury in his time at Newcastle. That he even made it back to first grade was a minor miracle. But he’d proven reliable during his first season at the club, and signed a two year extension (through end 2026) at the beginning of this year. It was a moment of success for him and critical security it turns out.

It was also recognition that the club valued his understated offerings. So far at least Saulo hasn’t had the star offerings of a Papalii or a Tapine, or the exciting ball running of a Trey Mooney. But he’s a strong runner, and offers many desperately needed things that other Canberra forwards don’t. As we said earlier in the year:

He’s one of the hardest working players in the league. He is one of the few Raiders that ranks highly in involvement rate, primarily because he runs support and decoy lines – something that the rest of the club appears unable to do (too lazy or told not to? I dunno) – and tackles everyone he can.

He has one of the highest tackle-to-minute ratios on the team, this year and last. He somehow got through 400 tackles last season, and another 157 in 253 minutes of game time this year, one of the highest tackle/minute ratios at the club.

Canberra have missed him desperately even if most haven’t realised. That middle defence has been a critical weakness as the season has wore on. He’s an avatar of a problem. Without Saulo and Horsburgh, without Zac Hosking to allow Elliott Whitehead to move to the middle rotation, Morgan Smithies has been asked to an unending amount of work in his first season in the league and it’s wore him down. Ata Mariota and Trey Mooney have been lent on to play big minutes in the middle. Outside the club fulfilling my dreams and giving Hep Puru a run, it’s meant the club has had limited flexibility when it comes to middles. If Ata and Mooney haven’t fired then there’s little to be done. Only now with Hosking back and Horsburgh getting close is there the manpower for Stuart’s famed competition philosophy.

It’s meant the club has less flexibility outside Mooney, Mariota and Morgan Smithies, than the non-linear passage of development would normally necessitate. It’s meant problems in the middle of the game. They’ve been outscored 13.6 points to 8.4 between the 30th and 60th minute in the games since Saulo went down (compared to outscoring their opposition 7.5 to 6.5 through when he played). It’s not the only reason this occurred but it’s definitely a contributing factor, and Saulo’s absence is part of a stretched middle rotation. This issue may have dissipated now that Hosking’s return has allowed Elliott Whitehead to shift to the middle, a solution one week old. But there’s no doubt that without Saulo there’s been a lack of options in how they have adjusted.

Players like Saulo’s absence is sometimes unheralded because of the nature of their offerings. We as viewers tend not to realise these things because we prefer an angry run with the ball than an effective decoy off it. We tend not to put weight on the ability of spry middles to make multiple defensive efforts, allowing ball-running focused players like Papalii and Tapine an opportunity to save their efforts for their comparative advantage. But this is one reason Tom Starling has been playing such big minutes lately. The Raiders need defence in the middle. Starling and Smithies (and increasingly Tapine, redlining his motor to keep the Milk alive) have had to do a lot of it. If Saulo wasn’t injured he’d been doing it too.

Saulo’s willingness to do the dirty work is important to the club on the field, but it could be equally so off the field. With fellow former Novacastrian Myles Martin joining the club next year (another for the stray dogs), having a senior first grader so willing to put in the work in the bits of the field that go unrecognised is a good example to follow. That’s a next year’s solution and we hope Pasami is part of it. Because he’s certainly been missed this year.

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