BY DAN

In a devastating outcome the Canberra Raiders and Jordan Rapana will be parted after this season. Jordy will instead be reportedly heading to Hull.

Details are sketchy so far, but presumably it’s a two year deal as Rapana had been clear he was seeking. It’s also not clear how Hull FC’s currently relegation battle would affect this. Would Rapana seriously leave to play second division Super League (don’t ask me to know what the name of that competition is)? We’ll have to wait and see.

But presuming this occurs this is heartbreaking news. For years Rapa has been not just a part of the Milk, but an avatar of who they were and what they stood for; simultaneously insane and ingenious. Willing to run into a wall just to see if bricks are as tough as people say. Capable of doing something we didn’t know he could simply because he believed.

That was always part of the fun with Jordy. When he was there anything was possible because he thought it was. And when he did, we believed him. For a club that often exists in a state of perpetual struggle, he was the braggadocio of Sisyphus combined with actually fucking believing he’d get that rock to the top.

Occasionally he did, and we can do nothing but thank him for existing, for doing so in our timeline, for our team. Every time he took the field it stiffened the spines of Raiders fans, players, probably the board if you ask them. We all felt braver because Jordan was brave. We all felt stronger because Rapa was strong. We strived because he did.

Fans of every other team in the competition hated him. Thought he was dirty. A lunatic who needed corralling. But they didn’t know him like we did. He was the epitome of John Kennedy’s famous speech: “Do something! Don’t think! Do!” This was a man for whom the rights and wrongs of the situation weren’t relevant. Just the outcome, and the willingness to sacrifice your body and soul to make sure it was the right one for the Raiders. On occasion he didn’t get it right. But those moments pale in comparison to the days he saved the Milk.

He’ll be missed both emotionally and practically. In his progress from afterthought in 2015 to legend he’s held many roles. From spark plug to gap filler. Wing, fullback, centre. And he just added strings to his bow as needed. Need a 40/20, goals, or a field goal? Rapa would do it, even if he’d never done it before.  Need someone to cover for the fact you haven’t been able to create a fullback to cover the gap between the past and the future? All good, Jordy will work it out, becoming a centre-piece of the attack, perhaps thriving in an environment that without structure took on more and more of his personality as his role grew.

Now the Raiders will need to find someone else to cover the gaps that exist in their back five. The cracks that Rapana has papered over in recent years will be more pronounced. There simply aren’t others that can cover the multiple positions in the way he did. Seb Kris has the organisation-supported versatility but not the explosive talent. Xavier Savage has the excitement but not the preternatural willingness to scrap when even scrapping is hopeless. Albert Hopoate is also seemingly made of cement but despite last weekend’s effort, asking him to perform alchemy like Rapana has made routine is a fool’s errand. He cannot be replaced.

We will miss him. It’s a bit surprising the club wasn’t able to find a way to keep him. Two years would probably have been too many, given his age and the relative decline of his athleticism. And maybe the club are very high on their other options. But the gap between outcomes is going to be substantial, and the lack of experience in that back five is now glaring. Should they have met Rapana’s desires? It’s hard to be rational and cold about this, but the club has apparently chosen now as the first time they would do that. 

It’s painful for it to be true but as they say, it wouldn’t be an ending if it was fun. At least Jordan gets to walk away a warrior for the club, a brilliant and enigmatic footballing genius-slash-lunatic-slash-savant. He gave his all to the Milk and will forever be our greatest winger, and one of Canberra’s favourite sons.

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Feature image courtesy of NRL.com