BY DAN

Simaima Taufa has captained the Raiders for two years now. In a team that has performed in fits and starts she has been constant. A train burning through the middle of the park, the rest of the club dragged into professionalism and competitiveness by the draft that follows her. Her consistency, consistently recognised come time for representative football, is a weapon that Canberra could desperately use more of. Her leadership is something they live by.

Joe Tapine has captained the Raiders before, and will do so on a full time basis from next season. In a team that has raged and whimpered like a scared animal his fury has been persistent. Every run seems downhill, his legs unwilling to buckle under the pressure of multiple tacklers like a Dad with toddlers hanging off him. He is too big, too agile, too goddamn good at football to not be recognised when it comes time for New Zealand to play football. He was a leader for his nation before his club, exuding pride and power in both.

As a club the Canberra Raiders are lucky to have these two players. Born barely a week apart the year the Milk last hoisted the premiership, they have come to be talismanic figures at the club, though admittedly through different paths.

Taufa was established when she got to the club, taking on a task shirked by others to be the leader, the foundation stone, of a new club. To be the person that an entire group of players took their cues from. The figure that stood as an example to a generation of women moving into professional sport. The hero of those now aware that path could be in their future. Overcoming a difficult youth just to get where she was. Taking on the even greater responsibility when she got there. Weaker people would have wilted in the difficult periods that followed. Taufa hasn’t buckled. Even when her body didn’t cooperate she just strapped up her knee and kept running, a maniac in the truest most beautiful rugby league sense.

For many years Tapine was frustrating potential. By his own admission he had lessons to learn, a path to forge for himself. Like all young men finding themselves he emerged through the turbulence into a quieter place. He now seems at peace, confident about expressing what is important to him and eschewing the noise that can so often comes with a high profile gig like his. He channels into efforts into his profession, and the results are astounding. It’s not hard to think that his is a voice of patience with young players finding the same pitfalls he did. He’ll make a wonderful leader. He is already one of the all-time players.

The smartest people in the world will tell you making yourself indispensable at work is a good way to limit your career. Maims and Taps have chosen being the centrepiece of their teams, the person relied on beyond what is reasonable. They are irreplaceable for the Raiders, both in tenor and in tangible output. They are necessary for both current performance and the hope of the future. But gratefully it hasn’t limited their careers, if we consider their naming in their respective national sides as evidence, or their recognition on Dally M night.

They weren’t the only Raiders to make such squads. Matt Timoko will (thankfully) join the Kiwis alongside Tapine, no doubt ready to display the passing skill he put on show last year. Mackenzie Wiki gets reward for her improvement in 2024 and will join the departing Apii Nicholls and Ash Quinlan in the Kiwi team also. The Finau sisters have been picked for Tonga. Congratulations for this honour to each and every one of these players. Taps and Taufa aren’t the only elite players in the Canberra set up.

But it feel more important they get recognised. Canberra may not win a premiership while either is at the club. But if they do in the years that followed it will be because of the example they set, the stone they chiseled. That they get to reap the honour of being named for their countries seems a just reward.

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