BY DAN

Hello and welcome to our offseason series. In this we’ll take a look at what is likely to be another challenging year. Sometimes it won’t be fun but occasionally it will, because life sucks and we deserve a little peace and a promise of sunshine. This is part one, and if I remember I’ll come back and put links to the rest of the pieces here.

It’s possible the rest of the league has forgotten how far along the development chain Ethan Strange is.

I based this solely by him not winning Rookie of the Year on Dally M night. It’s understandable in a sense. The people who vote usually have the memory of a potato chip and the attention span of a toddler with a tik tok account. It’s how Kalyn Ponga won the Dally M in 2023 despite being good for all of eight weeks. They have priors, and unless their priors are ripped to shreds in front of their own eyes they won’t notice. Ethan had the misfortune of being good for the Raiders. Silly mistake to be honest.

Ok that’s not fair. Jack Bostock was really good and earned his award. Ethan was one of the nominees and that’s enough. You don’t get anything good for winning RoY, so maybe I won’t be so protective. But what Ethan achieved in first grade despite being younger than Facebook was remarkable. While Canberra weren’t finalists, there were moments where they looked like a proper football team and Strange’s work at second receiver was a key part of it. His strength was running the ball and a defensive physicality and ability to cover space that were beyond his years but not his athleticism. His playmaking is developing, but there were moments, like his twin face-balls to Hudson Young to beat the Bulldogs, that showed a way forward that could be not just exciting, but elite.

He wasn’t a perfect cog in an attacking wheel, but it’s hard to separate that from the rest of the machine in which he operated. For the Milk he was second in try assists, first in line-break assists, first in tackle busts, second in try contributions and sixth in line breaks. While Coach Stuart had his views about this, the portrayal of Strange as anything but excellent relative to expectations this year is frankly idiotic.

Placing him in the context of the league shows the extent to which he needs to improve. It’s hard to ignore that Canberra’s attack was insipid and often ineffective. Strange wasn’t the driving force of that but he also wasn’t absolved of responsibility. His 10 try assists pale in comparison to leaders at his position like Luke Brooks (23), Dylan Brown (21), Keary (21) Walker (21), Jerome Luai (20) (but not far behind Dally M five-eighth of the year Tom Dearden (12), again proving rugby league statistics are useful idiots more than indicators).

Strange does need to improve his creative play but let’s be clear about the scale of responsibility. Delve a little deeper and we discover that Strange’s offensive output in limited by opportunity. He only touched the ball 581 times this season, substantially less than most every-week sixes. When we calculate a try-assist to possession ratio, as per below, the gap seems not as big as one may have thought.

Table 1: Try assists and possession ratio, select five-eighths (based on FOX League stats) (CLICK TO EXPAND)

Player	Try assists	Possessions	Ratio (TA per touch)
Cody Walker	21	906	1 per 43.1
Dylan Brown	21	1133	1 per 54.0
Ethan Strange	10	581	1 per 58.1
Luke Brooks	23	1360	1 per 59.1
Jerome Luai	20	1193	1 per 59.7
Luke Keary	21	1313	1 per 62.5
Lachie Galvin	17	1091	1 per 64.2
Nicho Hynes	15	1098	1 per 73.2
Matt Burton	14	1174	1 per 83.9
Tom Dearden	12	1286	1 per 107.2

As you can see from the table, Strange’s efficiency is comparable to some of the most elite sixes in the competition. Of course no sane human would use this to suggest he is on that level of playmaking ability yet. His efficiency is born from his lack of opportunity, much as his lack of try-assists is influenced by the same. Many of these other players have different roles to Strange in their respective attacks. For example Nicho Hynes consistently touches the ball in non-scoring positions – i.e to set up a regular hit-up. One would expect his efficiency to be relatively low.

If Strange’s touches increased his try-assists would likely increase, but also would the number of touches per try assist. But this does underscore that Strange, while imperfect, is already finding ways to create. That he’s doing this as part of one of the worst attacks in the competition can be viewed optimistically.

There are opportunities for Strange to improve. We’ve noted before that Strange developed a tendency to head sideways in his approach to the line. This was proven by the below from the Rugby League Eye Test.

This is doubly reflected by his relatively few line engagements, both in an absolute and a per touch basis. Indeed at times it felt like he only engaged the line on runs. This was usually effective, but being able to approach to the line holding two ideas (run and pass) and accepting neither, will open up the game much more for him. That will take reps and time. The presence of a dummy half with some creativity and a more functional offence would open up some space around the ruck so Strange isn’t always being chased inside-out by covering defenders. When he nails this aspect of his game he’ll go from promising to exciting.

One thing he’s much further along the developmental pathway is defence. Physically he’s already the equivalent or more than most other five-eighths. He has an ability to seemingly over-commit to his insider shoulder, only to show a remarkable ability to get back to wider runners should the ball be sent that way. Of the above list only Hynes, Galvin and Brown had higher tackle efficiency measures (and well above Jack Wighton for the record). Again, doing this while part of one of the worst defences in the competition is an achievement in itself.

So much space for Strange’s improvement will come from those around him improving, not in the least the approach taken by the side, and a more consistent presence of an organising half. Fogarty spent much of 2024 unavailable, and initially the Raiders didn’t have a ready replacement. Now they’ll have not just Adam Cook but also Ethan Sanders capable of playing the yin to Strange’s yang. And if the club can ever get out of their own way and design an attack more sophisticated than ‘can’t go over it, can’t go around it, have to go through it’, then we could be on a real old fashioned bear hunt.

Strange’s potential right now is unlimited. The upside for Raiders fans should excite, no matter what Ricky Stuart did to him late in the year. Whether it’s in 2025 or beyond, Ethan Strange will be a big part of Canberra’s future.

Like the page on Facebook, follow me,  Rob, or Viv on Twitter, or share this on social media and we can laugh together that Jack Wighton’s try-assist to possession ratio was 1 per 121.2. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback (dan@sportress.org) or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.