BY DAN

Do you remember when John Bateman pretended to throw it at Jarrod Wallace?

Of course you do. You’re a nuffy just like me. It was round one 2019. Bateman’s first game for the club. In that moment he was catalysing something that had been brewing. A new found spine – not in the positional sense, but in the strength of spirit. Something was different about the Milk. For the first time in years it felt like they had a bit of punch, and bit of verve, and more importantly, defensive starch and attacking flair on the right edge. His arrival was transformative. A club that had been frustratingly mediocre suddenly vaulted into the stratosphere. He wasn’t the only reason – Charnze coming, Jack moving to six, Big Papa going postal, Josh being Josh. They were all important. But it cannot be overstated how much having effective play on the right edge mattered to the Raiders.

Six years later another Englishmen joins the club to play the same position. Matty Nicholson is young – just 21 and not the fully formed footballer that John Bateman was. He’s not even a fully formed physique, as Coach Stuart noted last week

He’s put on some really good size since he’s been here. You can see that he hasn’t done a lot of work in the gymnasium.

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He’s only learning the game itself, and now he’s been thrust into the limelight of the National Rugby League. It’s a lot for any player transitioning from the Super League to handle. Asking him to be transformative as his countryman is a lot to ask. But Nicholson’s performance this year will play an important part in determining if the Raiders can break with their recent past and move into something more interesting. And if he can do that, then he’ll be a big part of the future.

So many things flow from the Milk having an effective edge player on the right hand side. That side has hardly been a defensive wall in Canberra’s recent season. They conceded 39 per cent of their tries down that edge last season. Elliott Whitehead had to bear a weight his bones could no longer handle trying to keep it functional. That took it’s toll in attack too, with Whitehead’s inability to create much threat to the line making life for those outside him more difficult. Zac Hosking was originally tasked with the role but hasn’t been able to stay healthy so far.

Now Canberra have an opportunity to bring youth, talent, passing and agility to an edge that’s been missing it. But there’s plenty of flow-on effects beyond the immediate. If he can do the job it frees Hosking up to play minutes in the middle. That means less reliance on Morgan Smithies, and an increased ability to play with agility and pace through the middle. While middle defence isn’t exactly how you prolong a man’s career, if Hosking is having issues staying on the park (we’re not at that point yet but still) reduced minutes might help. Alternatively Coach Stuart has noted that Nicholson could cover the middle as well.

Matty’s got the ability to play on the edge and play in the middle, which is from that utility value is very handy for a coach, given the importance of the interchange in the bench. But he’s been doing some really good work on the right edge for us.

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As we wrote earlier this week, Stuart has mentioned this so many times that we’re thinking it’s a likelihood. Perhaps the short term includes Hosking and Nicholson sharing duties. Either way effective right edge defence next to whomever the half is will allow Canberra to make more ambitious choices about who their halves are. Ethan Sanders’ first grade challenge will be defensive. We saw him targeted in the trial game by an attack wanting to use his size against him.

You really need quality second-rowers to provide sufficient support. On one side Hudson Young will provide cover, and Zac Hosking can probably do it on the right, but given the aforementioned conditioning questions, it’d make sense to have someone more permanent building those connections and partnerships on the right. In the trial game last weekend Nicholson got through a mountain of work in that role. 31 tackles in the first half. He was helping in to support the middle. He was pushing out to cover Adam Cook. It wasn’t prime Bateman but for a first impression it was a good one.

The combination of improved defence and more flexible middle rotations might encourage the Raiders to be more forward thinking with their hooker rotation. Work with me here because it’s a bit of a two-step. One of the appeals of bring Tom Starling off the bench is that he offers them an ‘break in emergency’ utility value. He’s played alongside the starting rake, he’s been inserted to stabilise a cooked middle defence. He is there for a multitude of reasons. Zac Hosking can do part of that role from 17, meaning that Tom Starling could move to starting rake and Owen Pattie moving into the 17 to spell Tom. That could have flow-on effects into opening up the attack, with Pattie and Hosking both being able to ensure that the ball can get wider from the ruck than it currently does.

But all that relies on Matty Nicholson being pretty handy on the right edge. It’s something we’ll be watching closely on Thursday. He’s looked the goods in Super League, matching effort-fueled effective defensive efforts with a loping edge running style that should be a good complement to Jamal Fogarty’s Flintstones and Matt Timoko’s more Tasmanian Devil (the cartoon, not the cranky wildlife) approach. He’s done it against the glorified cup side. The upcoming game becomes another data point with more utility.

We’re on the record that he’s ready to go now, but the leap from Super League to NRL is not too different from Cup footy to NRL. It’s a lot to expect to go perfectly. Again, he’s just 21. Even if this was a young player coming through the grades here we’d expect the bumps and bruises of development to play a role. That it doubly so for someone coming halfway across the world. There will be growing pains.

Coach Stuart recognises the challenge, and in the pre game reiterated messages he’d provided in the media earlier in the week, trying to lower expectations for Nicholson by pointing to what might be possibly next year and “seeing what his [body] shape will look like this time next year after two good pre-seasons in the gym”. It almost seemed like he was pushing the expectation meter out a year, hoping to give Nicholson a year to get ready to play first grade rather than have to burden those expectations from the get go.

We won’t know until the second trial team is named (and the game is played) as to where the club sees him. It may be they want to bring him along later in the season. It may be Zac Hosking’s position for now. He looked ready to me.

With everyone who *knows* things about the Super League rating him as a perfect NRL prospect it’s hard not to get excited. The circumstances to Bateman’s time in Canberra are markedly different, both in terms of the individual and the team he’s joining. But Nicholson can be a transformative player the Milk. This year and into the future.

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