BY DAN

Ricky Stuart is promising the future.

This in itself is interesting. An honest man would say his promise is to provide patience for the players. Tell the world your developing. Use the ‘R’ word (rebuilding) to ensure people know that it’s not about today or even tomorrow. Mistakes will be made. Lessons will be learned. This cadre of children, this plethora of puberty blues, this wave of whippersnappers, will be the thing that we’ve all dreamed. But not today. Or tomorrow. Check back Tuesday. Or 2026.

A cynical man would say it’s about buying time for him. Promise the future and the present never comes. Alleviate what pressure does exist on his position by removing the accountability of results. Go full Ted Lasso with the wins and losses. It doesn’t matter, I just want to help these boys become men. To be the best they can. It’ll be great at some point, but that point is not the point. Not now at least. Maybe never.

That, of course, is unfair. Stuart is definitely trying to manage expectations, but the idea that he’s doing it to keep his spot would suggest there’s some pressure on his position. I’m not convinced that’s the case. You, I, and all people reading these pages, know Stick basically has the closest thing to tenure that rugby league offers (outside of Buzz Rothfield). Pushing out hope if he doesn’t actually believe it only spoils the legacy.

Of course all these factors are likely influential. Humans are humans and if they weren’t fallible there wouldn’t be that golden road on the way to hell. The intentions are important but the outcome is the same whatever they are: Canberra is on a path that is not certain. That’s the deal with young talent. It might work out. It might not. Chevy Stewart might be the second coming of James Tedesco. He might also never again play first grade for the Milk because Kaeo Weekes keeps him out (that is a point, not a prediction).

The nature of the game is that you’re dealing with uncertainty, so the Raiders have tried to diversify their risk by getting so much youth that no matter how the hope splatters. It’s house made of sticks for Sticks. Only the big bad wolf in this scenario is snake eyes when it comes to development. Canberra have made big bets on Strange, Sanders, Stewart and co. It’s not hard to see they’ve come as friends who want to build a future together. Similar vibes have driven Penrith’s unending behemoth in recent years, so you can say there’s a sense to the plan. If you can’t beat em, join em and all that.

But what happens if one of them doesn’t make it? If Stewart gets stuck behind the comet that is Kaeo Weekes? Or Stange gets pushed to centre to watch other play footy while he catches a cold in Canberra’s infantile attacking system? What if Sanders never unseats Fogarty, or succumbs to Rick’s sometimes fraught relationships with halves? What if Owen Pattie (or Danny Walker) can’t unseat the siren call of Danny Levi? It’s another challenge; a variance on the pathway that Stuart will need to manage.

But the premise – that Canberra can’t simply keep muddling and middling through with its existing approach – is a fair one. We’ve made the pitch ourselves in a on-field sense, but it equally applies to the off-field. The Raiders have always had to look where others wouldn’t. This isn’t quite that – all these young players were wanted or owned by other club’s previous to coming to the nation’s most arboreous city.

But it’s still an example of putting the money where others can’t. Tell me another club that can deliberately tell the world ‘we’ll be good, but just not now’? Such an audacious approach hasn’t been tried since the Knights kicked the can down the road for three year. That went nowhere. It’s the antithesis of Sticky to just lose for the sake of it, and there’s no draft to ease the pain.

In a sense the Raiders are unique in preaching patience, admitting a gap exists for the purposes of covering it and then some. But this is about expectations. This roster still has rep players. There’s no way on earth Hudson Young will be told to wait. Josh Papalii is out of time. You only need to look at every time Joe Tapine threw his heart and soul into the defensive line late in games to know he will not accept “learning” as an excuse. Not on game day at least.

In a league in which the only measure of success of chips only one team can win. It means the likely outcome of all this is failure, only because the stakes are so high. The club, and Stuart’s, decision to go ‘all in’ on tomorrow is both risky and risk averse. It puts the emphasis on an unlikely but rewarding scenario. Chips over finals appearances. Building tomorrow over grinding today. If Stuart can loosen his grip and allow these young players to inject their own style into the schemes, who knows. Like an old guy at the diner, it could be the move.

But the risk is plain to see. The future is promised to no man, lest of all Ricky Stuart and the Canberra Raiders.

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