Something that I would like to investigate further is around the sustainability of the recruitment pathways of our club. I have a few points that I would be interested in your opinions on. It’s a sore point for me and I don’t like that it is. It always feels a bit sour grapey. Nevertheless, here I am banging on about it.

My thoughts about Ricky Stuart and Don Furner’s tenure are in a nutshell, that they are wonderful men who have loved our club, fostered mostly young/broken talent, created a family in club and culture, and made the most of what has been available. However, I think long term, this “Dad” strategy can have the consequence of emotional baggage which can really undo all the good work.

The media this week from Zac Woolford, who my observations had a key personality at the club, expressing a bitterness about his contract not being released at his whim. I think if we look at the facts here. Zac being plucked to play NRL with his father’s football alma mater, signing a significant and long contract which outlived his career ability to play top grade football – Zac should be fairly content. But instead he feels like an estranged family member and that’s not good. 

At the heart of it, I see our club as failing to modernise as a business the way other clubs in the NRL have. We have been run by the same families from the Queanbeyan Leagues Clubs, which is wonderful for our soul, but not going to cut it with teams in the NRL who employ professionals and run their clubs in a less amateur way.

The main outcome is that the Raiders remain seemingly patently unable to sign players of (Origin) representative calibre, a recruitment drought by my calculations that is ongoing for almost 40 years; and is this true of any other club? If this is the only recruitment pathway we have, and it is so intrinsically tied to loyalty, emotion, culture, we have a system that can fly or nose dive depending on who is making the cut each week. 

If the NRL has a salary cap to make retention fair, but a club can’t compete on equal value or even more money, then that club needs concessions – like the proposed PNG team. I would argue that being unable to sign an established “star” for 39 years should be enough proof that this is the case. The fact is we are locationally disadvantaged. It is a hard sell to a 20 year old man to pack up and move inland, away from the beach, the lights, the parties unless the money really does compensate.

I would love to see a chart of incumbent rep player movements over the past 30 years. I think it would be jarring to see how easy it is for some teams and how hard for others to buy talent that can instantly improve your squad to the point of being competitive in finals or not. I think a chart of this nature could be the foundation for the NRL to make salary cap adjustments to the teams consistently out of the running for high end players.  

While the Raiders are at the whim of a salary cap that, dollar for dollar worth less than other clubs, our only tactic is emotionally tie players to our family, which I fear, may not be a sustainable strategy.

Maybe I just needed to vent. I know that the Raiders complaining that we are not able to get an equal foundation to compete effectively to the NRL is laughable, as if the NRL cares. But help me understand Dan, because it feels very unfair at a root level. 

***

Food for thought Lampus. Thank you for your contribution.