BY DAN

As Canberra Raiders fans country wide stumbled out bed this morning their hangovers were met with both grief and sweet relief. The pain of galling performance also met with the knowledge that the lies, the deflection, the moulding of hope into a plan, can all stop. 2024 is dead. No funeral will be held. No one will cry.

All that’s left to do now is plot. For next season, for a pathway. For a new hope and a new plan and maybe, just maybe, success. One day.

It’s easier said than done. The Raiders are led by a coach with as much enthusiasm for change as I have for jogging. But in the last two seasons Stuart has proven willing to make weird fucking changes at the end of the year in some misguided attempt to manufacture an attack that should have been built earlier in the year (or maybe the pre-season? What do I know, I’m not a doctor). What if he made them in order to get a head-start on the following season? Is that possible?

There are some obvious changes that can be made. Ethan Strange can return to six. He is better at six, is paid like a six, and is going to be a six in the future, so it just seems bizarre to play him out of position. Strange isn’t a, elite passer yet but he’s not going to learn that without the ball in his hands. Ask Matt Timoko how much ‘early ball’ he gets at centre.

Part of the reason he hasn’t laid a heap of dimes on those outside him (though he leads the team in try assists with Jamal Fogarty) is that there’s no space – ever, hence him always coming back into the middle of his left foot. That doesn’t alter whether he gets the ball at first, second, or third receiver. More is needed in the structure, tactics and execution of sets and little is to do with him. The other part is learning to make these decisions at the pace of the top level game. That’s the last thing that will come, likely not for years. But he won’t get there without doing the time.

Other options are out there too. We’d also try to get plenty of minutes into Trey Mooney, Ata Mariota and other middles that might be needed next year. Mooney’s defence has seen him dropped, and Ata hasn’t taken the leap handsome people were predicting him to take. Simi Sasagi continues to prove good in NSW Cup and not in NRL. If there’s some rotational opportunities for Hohepa Puru (if he’s staying around), Peter Tateeo or either Martin brother, then now would be a good chance for them to get a taste. I’d say play Corey Horsburgh but I think we can put a pin in that.

The challenge here is less about identifying the option, or something that needs to change. It’s more about working out if Ricky is ready to take accountability for the mess he’s made at the back end of this season. We’ve seen that hasn’t been his first instinct. After the game on Saturday he put all the blame on the players, as though they’re a wholly separate arm of the operation from him. Stuart didn’t seek to deflect, or take his share of the blame. He called them boys, precious, told them to have a look at themselves.

Just as the changes he made over the last fortnight have undermined the confidence of this side and the systems they have built earlier in the season, changing back now would be tantamount to him admitting that he got it wrong. When he laid it out in the press conference as brutally as he did, it’s hard to then turn around and say ‘actually that’s on me’. So instead chances are we’ll get ‘double-down’ Tuesday (shouts to my guy Herman who gave me that in the group chat), where Stuart continues on this rocky path.

So in terms of learning things over the last three weeks I’m not sure what to offer you. To be honest it seems more likely we’ll learn more about Rick’s stubbornness, and his love for a fine cigar Adam Cook than we will about the Raiders future. It was a missed opportunity last week and it’ll be a missed opportunity this week. Tis quite a time to be a fan of the Milk.

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