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. Part I on Ethan Strange is here. Part II on the edge depth is here.

Opportunities are offered to all of us, and only sometimes do we take them. That’s one of the many pains (and joys) of existence. The knowledge you had something in your hands and butchered it. In the best circumstances we learn from it, get better. In the worst it consumes us.

Calm down, it’s just footy.

Morgan Smithies was given this opportunity many would beg for. One that, according to him, was one he couldn’t say no to, no matter the challenge. As he told the Canberra Times:

When this opportunity came, I felt like it was one I had to take with both hands because they don’t come around too often.

Coming from England it wasn’t clear what his role was. As he told Wigan Today:

My main focus was getting in the 17, and I got named 13 in the first game and managed to keep my spot for the year. It probably did take me a little bit by surprise, but a lot of hard work went into it.

Circumstances granted the space to settle in. Corey Horsburgh’s truncated year was a cause. As was Zac Hosking’s injury, and the club’s reticence to use Hohepa Puru in his natural role. It meant that Morgan became the sole custodian of the Raiders’ lock position.

His limitations in the role mirrored those of the club. He was and is unquestionably hard working, willing to take a carry or make a tackle whenever asked. His running game is honest but hardly dynamic. On 222 carries for the season he broke 15 tackles, which was 144th in the competition among forwards, and even worse if you counted it by tackles broken per carry. In defence he made all the tackles, a team leading 811. But he had notable moments where he made errors that became tries. These were mostly due to the sheer exhaustion caused by his usage rate. However, occasionally they came from a lack of agility.

And more than anything else his passing through the middle third – something identified as a key skill in the early season goings by both the coaching and playing staff – was imperfect. Sometimes slow, sometimes inaccurate. Mostly without guile. It exacerbated the overly simplistic attacking format the Raiders used. They were stuck in the middle third both because that was the mud they preferred, but also because even when they wanted to they couldn’t easily get out of it.

This may seem like a criticism of Smithies but more it was a question of person and role. Smithies is an effort person. Don’t smirk, this isn’t a criticism. The ability to offer continuous effort in a sport with the best athletes in the world is a talent. You need both skill and work rate players in a team. After all, if you’re going to run to the line dummying at decoy runners you need people to make the decoy runs. Smithies had the 7th most in the whole competition.

But instead of that being his focus – churn the hard yards. Eat the innings. Be Horace Grant and let others be like Mike – the Raiders kept asking him to have a foot in both camps. He still was asked to be that link, a creative presence in the middle, while also being the workhorse. No one ever asked Boxer to dance. Like others expected to provide a spark in the middle (i.e the hookers) it was something that just isn’t part of his bag of tricks. When Corey Horsburgh’s returned at the end of the year it provided such a clear contrast between players and roles. Big Red’s skill set suited the ask. Smithies is a different beast.

For now. The Raiders have seen Hohepa Puru leave, and it means that Smithies will likely be asked to take on the same role in some form, pending how far along Myles Martin is. This time the nature of it changes though. Whether he plays 13 to Corey’s 10, or 17 to his 13, the demands on his playmaking will likely be less, as will the expectation he gets through sixty odd minutes of footy, as he did in 13 games last season. This could make the scope of his job smaller and let him fit the role a little more easily.

He’ll also be in his second year. It was always striking to me that the Milk asked a first year played to be such a critical cog of their success. The increased pace and decreased space of the game made the ask to develop a passing game to match was always going to be a big ask. Forget defending effectively for 70 minutes a game. A season of learning, and a pre-season to skill-up and build-up, and maybe he can expand his passing ability, and the dynamism in his running. Smithies also thinks so:

The intensity is so high each week. It took a little bit to get used to it, but I feel I’ll be more confident going into the next pre-season and another season in the NRL

If that happens then the may end up fitting the role, particularly if the ask itself shrinks a little.

And then again maybe he doesn’t. And that should be OK. The Raiders need players like him and Pasami Saulo that are willing to do the dirty work, to run the decoys, make the tackles, take those hard runs that are more about getting to your belly than getting bulk metres. The key thing is finding a match of role and player. That’s the opportunity, for him and the club.

In 2025 they’ll need to work out what that means for Morgan Smithies.

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