BY DAN

Canberra can’t keep doing it like this.

For three years since their preliminary final manhandling by COVID and the Storm, the last vestiges of the 2019 wave have now finally petered out. A talented team increasingly focused around fewer and fewer veterans, has been pushing a way of playing, stretching a strategy, contorting it, in increasingly chaotic ways in order to get results. There’s not really been so much a blueprint as a mindset. Whatever it takes. Roll the ball out, let the players play. Graft. Scrape. Pinch. Steal. We’ll find a way.

This has delivered increasingly diminishing returns. After finishing close to the bottom in both attack and defence in 2023, the Raiders were 3rd worst in attack and 7th worst in those measurements in 2024. 12 wins resulted, almost certainly above any advanced metric of win expectations. Much like previous years they fought themselves and won more than Ed Norton.

But for Canberra this has been a trough masked by adorable lunatics making high variance plays. If the aim is building a contender then this isn’t the way. Imagine what Canberra’s record looks like if Jordan Rapana doesn’t become a field goal expert on a random Saturday evening? What if Elliott Whitehead didn’t come back from a multi-week break to suddenly become the intercept king? What if Corey Horsburgh doesn’t collect that grubber? Shit it delivered five wins (from 14 attempts) against the top 8 sides in the competition. But good teams win with consistency, not insanity.

Too often lunacy has been the gap between winning and losing for the Raiders in recent years. It doesn’t make for comfort. After not winning a game by 13 plus in 2023, the first three games for the Milk were big wins. Then injuries happened, the season got confused, and there was one more comfortable victory (over Souths, 32-12). The rest of the season was chaos and critical moments. Vets had to make critical plays, and now those experienced players are largely gone. It is possible that the only remaining players from the 2019 grand final team are Joe Tapine, Josh Papalii and Corey Horsburgh. As much as Red impressed on the weekend, I don’t think any of them is about to start slotting field goals.

The wave of 2019 has passed the changing roster, reflected in the words of Coach Stuart. The roster has begun the overhaul, the need for replenishment obvious. The coming phase becomes about nurturing that next generation and the timing of its delivery. 2025 becomes about taking what we learned in 2024 and extrapolating and building on it for the future.

Canberra do have existing foundation stones to build around. Joe Tapine had another season proving himself the standard bearer of props across the competition. Josh Papalii had another incredible year. He should not be so important at this point in his career. Hudson Young had a origin related swoon but peaked at the back end of the year. He’s representative quality. Corey Horsburgh is also of that standard, and I’m on the record that 2025 will be his best season in the NRL. Matt Timoko is at the point that his work as a ball-runner, particularly in yardage is taken for granted. Lord if we could ever unleash him in attack (or at least give him an opportunity or two). Xavier Savage, at his best, is representative quality. I am not kidding. Kaeo Weekes has shown he’s good enough to be a starting fullback, at the very least until Chevy Stewart does similar.

Ethan Strange is already really good. Like Jack Wighton before him, his presence in defence limits opposition by turning a spot normally targeted as a weakness into a strength. My hunch about straightening his run in attack is proven by the below from the Rugby League Eye Test.

When he nails this aspect of his game (hopefully aided by a more functional offence that gives him space rather than force him to find it) he’ll go from promising to exciting.

This roster, put with Jamal Fogarty was basically good enough to play finals and maybe more. They were 8-6 with him, 4-6 without him. They averaged 22.1 points a game with him, 16.4 without him. More importantly, when Fogarty played a dedicated six like Ethan Strange or Kaeo Weekes as his five-eighth (as opposed to a competitive seven like Adam Cook) they were eight wins and three loses and averaged 24 points a game. The Panthers averaged 24 points a game this season and won at a similar rate. Worth thinking about Ricky. It’s also worth pointing out that they conceded 25 points a game normally, 17 in which Fogarty was the lead half alongside a proper six. I know, your seven make up doesn’t your defence work. But you can see how Ethan Strange on an edge, Fog’s bombs, and the opposition constantly trapped in a corner or handing over possession leads to good defensive outcomes.

But I digress. The point is that at their best the Raiders can be good enough. And they keep proving and discovering reserves of talent. Ethan Strange went from possible to probable, and given the chance will be a great six for years to come. Xavier Savage went from probable to proved, both in his performance and what it might mean for the club’s capacity to turn talent in output. Chevy Stewart wasn’t an immediate success but what held him back was being a child. Add Nicholson, Sanders, Tamale, Pattie, Puru (please god) and Martin, Martin and Martin, and look, we should have enough to make everyone rich. Sure there’s recruitment to do. If Levi and Guler end up leaving I’d want to upgrade those positions. I would fight to keep Hep Puru. I’d try and get an experienced outside back, if only to provide depth should you need it.

But having the roster, and occasionally be able to outrun the fire in which you live is one thing. Moulding that talent into a non-insanity based contender, is another. Canberra need to do two things this off-season. Make sure they have a plan to make that talent work is the first step.

The second step is create a more consistent and structured offence. For years the game plan has been to not have one. They bank on knocking the doors down with an elite pack. Let talented players on the edges win individual matchups. Run and dump into offloads, second phase footy, let the boys live a little. It’s a plan favoured by Mick Crawley, who – to my understanding – has been in charge of this side of the ball for some time.

The problem with this approach is it relies on preternatural talent to make it look good. It puts all the chips in one basket, hoping that the rugby league equivalent of the market will reach equilibrium and deliver results. But the unseen hand never does the job for the Milk anymore. The results stand for themselves. Third worst in the competition this year, fifth worst last year. The last time the Raiders had a top 8 offence was 2020. Much is said of how 2019 was built on defence. But the third best in the competition was matched with the fourth best attack. This lack of attacking output puts pressure on a defence to be elite in order to win games (or other chaos to ensure). What they need is for the structural set up of the attack to offer a leg up, opportunities instead of options that exist only in theory.

I hope the club recognises this is where their efforts must lie this offseason. The signs are not great. After Saturday’s game, Joe Tapine talked about how these last few victories had been built on character and tackling. He said they’d already spoken about how they’ll spend the off-season focusing on maintaining that. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t win if you don’t have an elite defence. But there is a breaking point. Continuing with ‘close your eyes and shoot’ just seems madness. They desperately need something more structured, with more defined roles and options, not in the least to make it clearer for the next generation how they fit into the first grade lineup when they’re given the opportunity.

Over the last few years the club has felt both transitionary and stationary. It’s like the club both recognises change has come to what was built before but is too conservative to embrace it. That’s built from fear. I’m done with that. It’s time the Raiders stiffened their spine and set about doing what they need to. The wave has gone out and there’s no water to hide what they are. There’s work to be done.

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