BY DAN

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Canberra’s list manager, Joel Carbone, has been snatched up by the Sydney Roosters.

Carbone has been with the club for a long time. Initially recruited as a stats man back in 2016, he spent time as a NSW Cup coach, as well as Peter Mulholland’s right hand man before taking over as the lead recruitment guy in 2022. As we noted at the time there wasn’t a better person to learn from than Mulholland. Since then he’s been key part of the transition of Canberra’s roster to its current version. It’s always hard to tell with the Raiders whether it’s Stick, Furner or Carbone identifying and picking talent, but it’d be a fair estimate to suggest he’s played his role well. The Raiders are losing an important piece. This is not insurmountable, but it’s not ideal.

There’s a bit of talk that this has heightened tensions between the clubs. Lord knows how true that is, or how significant they are, but if it’s true it speaks to how high the club rate him. I’m sure it also plays in personalities. Stick and Trent Robinson have a history that predates 2019. Neither are the easiest personalities.

But more than that, the tension will come from swimming in the same talent pond. The key shift for the Milk has been away from trying to build around home-built juniors surrounded by workmanlike vets from around the competition. The club has instead focused on recruiting talented juniors they can develop into first graders. Gone are the Canberra locals making it big. Instead it’s been taking Strange, Sanders, Stewart and Pattie and turning them into stars. For every Noah Martin there’s a Myles Martin – near NRL talent from another club being offered a pathway and development opportunities.

That’s a similar approach for the Roosters, albeit without the additional of supplementing their roster with an unquenchable thirst for big name players and the surplus of other club’s labours. Canberra will continue to search in the longer parts of other teams rosters, Queensland, the United Kingdom and wherever else the big money clubs don’t have to look. They will continue to look for elite juniors they can make first graders. This may or may not change where either side will look. But it certainly cements competition.

People will note that Carbone’s intimate knowledge of the roster will make Canberra vulnerable to the roster builds of the richest. That’s true, but was already a risk. So let’s not overstate the problem here. The “next” era of Stewart, Sanders, Strange, Noah Martin and Owen Pattie are all effectively locked in for the medium term. Same with the established stars.

If there’s a risk it’s to the next level. It’s harder to put concrete on the players of the generation after ‘next’. There’s only so long how you can “lock in” junior players, especially when cashed up vultures are circling. This is where I presume the Roosters’ raids focus, along with potentially targeting Chevy Stewart to take over from James Tedesco. Again, that risk was present with or without Carbone, but this certainly makes it more real.

The tendency to be swimming in the same pool is exacerbated by the fact that neither the Raiders, nor the Roosters deal with Isaac Moses’ clients. Given the scope of his influence, this narrows the base of players that the teams can pursue, and will likely only increase the incentive of the Roosters to come shopping in Canberra. It also will create a two-front war, potentially having to defend the realm from both the Roosters junior raids and those from the expansion clubs.

Carbone may be a success at the Roosters, but he also may not. Things operate differently at the Raiders, and the room for growth he was given over a ten year period won’t be offered at that organisation. The ways of doing things will almost certainly be different too. He may well just have suited Canberra.

That’s the key bit for the Raiders – they need to find someone that can fit into, make sense of, and thrive in this unicorn of an organisation. Finding a new list manager will be a challenge. Canberra have gone through one between Mulholland and Carbone (Kelly Egan for those playing at home). He didn’t last for reasons I only understand as rumour. It seems the Raiders adhere to that old heuristic about being a political hack – you either last nine months or nine years.

The good news is that so much of the top line roster is locked in for the medium term, and there’s a healthy pipeline of talent already in the lower grades. Of the players not locked in on long term deals, negotiations have either commenced, or they’ve been identified as key players to retain. There is structural stability. They are protecting a fortress, and even without one of their knights they should be able to maintain what they have.

And anyway, the pressure on them is going to be more determined by their success in the coming years. If they win everyone will turn up with their shopping bags. If they never turn this season’s promise into results then everyone will forget them again.

Even Joel Carbone.

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