BY DAN

We didn’t even get 24 hours to sit with this one before reality came crashing back into the house like a drunk uncle who’s finally got a rebuttal (best man? The better man).

Zac Hosking is off for scans on a wrist, with the suspicion it’s broken, according to the club. It’s likely to keep Hosking out for at least a month per most assessments. The club will likely confirm something equivalent after the scans are finalised Monday morning.

It’s a cruel blow for Hosking and for the Milk. It seems that he puts together momentary glimpses of brilliance in between spending time on the injury list. He was the best backrower in the competition through the early stages of 2024. He looked brilliant in both games this season, displaying his utility shifting between backrow and lock. Like his shoulder, or his calf, it feels like one of those injuries that just happens and you have to deal with it. But it’s now the fourth in basically ten games for the club. I hope this is just a horror run. The poor guy deserves better.

There’s no doubt Canberra will miss him. Hosking has won 70 percent of his games as a Raider. They’re averaging 24.5 points a game and only conceding 18. He fills a need in a very specific way. Shit we’re literally hours from Stick calling him the best buy in the competition. That’s not someone who you just ho-hum your way through.

With him at 13 Canberra’s attack looked as fast as its ever been. We noted that the three-headed hydra of him, Papa and Horse had brought a furious agility to the work through the middle third that the Broncos couldn’t keep up with. The teams they’re facing in the coming weeks would have been even worse placed to handle such an approach. This is particularly the case because Joe Tapine will be waiting another week to come back, so there’s not even the easy switcheroo there for Sunday’s match up with the sea-chickens (who sent me that one? I love it).

But for once it doesn’t feel like a solution will have to be a bunch of cats taped together. Matty Nicholson showed that he’s ready for the big time, so the right edge has a solution. Simi Sasagi likely won’t start, but will provide the depth to cover right edge or lock as needed. Morgan Smithies will play even more minutes than the low 36 minutes he played against the Broncos. It’s all there already.

There’s a wider question of whether Pasami Saulo or Trey Mooney gets the shot to come onto the bench, and the arguments are varied. Saulo is more work rate, and given how the club has emphasised that, and defensive effort, it would make him more a fit for the demands. Mooney is a barnstorming runner but his defensive effort is sometimes confoundingly quiet. That might be all Coach Stuart needs to go for Saulo. But that decision no longer feels make or break. It just feels like which luxury you’d prefer. More work or more impact.

The depth and obviousness of solutions feels like a new feeling for Raiders fans. Last year when Hosking went down the Raiders cycled through Simi Sasagi only a few steps into his long journey to being an edge forward, or turning up at Smell’s house in the mountains as he cut wood and telling him he’s the best. That they got such good play out of either player was a minor miracle. Before that it was Horse, or Ata Mariota, forced onto an edge to do a job that wasn’t there’s to do.

They feel much more capable of handling a situation like this now. Nicholson starts, Sasagi on the bench. Saulo or Mooney. If there’s more minutes needed at 13 they’ve even continued the ‘small ball’ approach of playing Starling there. Mix and match as appropriate. It’s more perilous than before, but even with further injuries it just opens the door for someone like Noah Martin, who Stuart has already noted he expects to play first grade at some point this year.

So it’s shit, but it’s shit that Canberra is better able to clean up. That’s good roster management and good development on show. A silver lining of sorts. Zac Hosking’s wrist is in a bad place and it sucks for the Raiders. But for once ‘next man up’ doesn’t feel like a hollow phrase.

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