BY DAN

Jamal Fogarty starts the 2025 season in a six round job interview. A process to prove his worth the job of lead half for the Canberra Raiders beyond 2025. It’s a tough battle for someone who’s proved their worth to the club already. But Fogarty is approaching an unquestionably difficult situation with impressive character.

The situation, such that it is, is tricky for Fogarty. The Raiders have six rounds, should they choose, to pick up his option for 2026 and pay him his current wage going forward. If they don’t, the offer significantly reduces. Then Fogarty has until round 20 to decide if he wants to play for “substantially” less in 2026. This is according to a Code Sports‘ investigation of contract options around the league.

It’s not hard to look at the situation and wonder if Jamal is on a hiding to nothing. The Raiders have already made the investment in Sanders, signed him on a deal beyond that of Fogarty’s. With constant chatter about the young half specifically, but also the club’s youth movement more generally, it’s hard not to think the outcome is already decided.

Even in a straight battle the chips are stacked against Fogarty. He’s a known quantity. 31 years old, with a recent string on injuries that won’t provide succour to a future focused club. His competitor is young and new and shiny. He is everything we want because we haven’t yet seen what he actually is yet. What’s more, in an environment where Canberra’s top 30 roster positions are increasingly rare, the flexibility that might come from Fogarty walking off into the sunset may appeal. But if that occurred the Raiders would lose a proven halfback. Not a hope. Not a guess. Certainty. Someone who, around injuries, has been hitting his peak in recent seasons.

Now we have a situation where Fogarty is working with the man that has come to take his job. Showing him the ropes, how to be a better leader, a better footballer. All so he can potentially be put out of a job. It’s a cruel business.

As you would expect from a man of his character, Fogarty has faced the situation without a selfish heart. As he told Martin Lenehan of NRL.com in November:

The club is going into a new era where they are backing all the young kids with their talent and we need to put a bit of time and patience into them. They are all great footballers, we just need to get them up to speed with the way we want to play. I’ll try and educate all the young kids below me and pick their brain as well – find out what they like to do and how they like to do it

You have to admire the awareness and the honesty. You can sense the resignation that he’s part of an older generation that is just laying the groundwork for the next to make something of it. It’s the business. It’s the game. But it must still hurt.

Here’s a man that didn’t get into the top line until later in his career. Had to prove himself at the Titans, before being pushed out for someone younger and more glamorous. He lost the battle but won the war, with his replacement leaving too, and himself proving his quality through his time in Canberra.

Here he is again, the sequel to the original show. Despite being Canberra’s best half over his time at the club. Despite leading the team in try assists in 2023 and 2024. Despite playing career best footy and turning the league on its head in early 2024. Again shepherding a prodigy into his job. And yet he faces it with an inspirational equanimity. We should all be so gracious.

His impact with Sanders was already being noticed by the young star. As the former Eels told Lenehan:

Jamal has been massive the first couple of weeks he’s been back, so if I can learn as much as I can from him it will put me in good stead to put me back in that [NRL] arena

I’m glad Sanders is appreciative. Many of us have had to train our replacement, or someone who got the job we wanted. It takes a person of high character to face it with their head held high, willing to fight and accept the chips as they fall. It would be salt in the wound if the efforts that Jamal has gone into, out of professionalism and out of circumstance, went unheralded. Yes it’s the business but we can still appreciate a man not kicking stones, showing leadership and a commitment to something bigger than himself. That’s how you build a winning culture.

He’s working to build Canberra’s future. As Jamal told NRL.com

The club will be in good hands moving forward.

The club already is.

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