BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders are getting close to finalising the retention drive, with reports emerging that Zac Hosking is close to finalising a two year extension (now finalised and official). That will take his time at Canberra to the end of 2028, putting him on the same timeline as a host of recent contracts signed with the club.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before but this is unquestionably good for the Raiders. On the field Hosking is a bit of a unicorn. He’s able to be a defensive workhorse (averaging 35 tackles a game despite only playing the full 80 in four games this season) while being a potent attacking weapon wherever you line him up. On the edge he hits a face ball with pace and agility, and is able to pop an offload to anyone that can stay near him. In the middle he adds a dynamism to the ball-running that can bring a pace-and-space to the attack through the middle third. Paired with Ata Mariota with a side of Morgan Smithies, they’ve proven a meal that most oppositions can’t handle.

That flexibility makes him a valuable weapon, both in this side and those of Christmas future. In a world where Matty Nicholson is back, he becomes a skeleton key, able to unlock whatever problem the Raiders need to get into and coverage for more positions than the orange and black website. He’s important depth, meaning the Raiders can pick their best 17 and not have to stress about coverage. To me and you he’s a friend, lover, chef. Give him a job and he’ll do it.

And he’s relatively young. He’ll be 31 at the end of this deal, meaning that this deal basically covers the rest of his prime. Despite his frustrating injuries, he’s shown sufficient capabilities over the last 18 months to suggest this is not an aberration – he’s just a really good footy player.

It’s yet another feather in the cap of the Raiders organisational wing and their process of future proofing, both for this side and against the incoming expansion teams. This move dates back to the ‘before his time’ extension of Ethan Strange last year. Since then it’s been a conga-line of strategic extensions. Pattie, Martin, Tamale. Hosking is nearly done. The signposting of all these deals – they were reported to be started, and nearly done, before being done – makes feelings around purported in-progress deals for Morgan Smithies, Simi Sasagi, Ata Mariota and Kaeo Weekes, very positive.

The Raiders are ‘all-in’, identifying that the talent in their current squad, and the pipeline feeding into it, is sufficient. Outside of trying to acquire as veteran half, the squad for the next few years is very settled. If cohesion has been a contributing factor to their success this year, one might think that influence would only grow more powerful if this team continue to grow together.

The risk here is that the internal talent isn’t enough to take Canberra to the next level. Windows are small in the NRL, and pushing the chips all in on this hand for the next few years is a gamble. But it’s as calculated as the Raiders can muster. This season is as good as any so far in the Stuart regime, and the organisation has set about ensuring the preconditions that have delivered it can exist for years to come. Deals like this mean that the Raiders will be able to roll this group back – currently 14 wins and 3 losses – over the coming years for multiple bites at the cherry.

That’s a smart bet to make, and to put Zac Hosking as a central cog of that bet is good business. Canberra may or may not be deliver a contender, or a premiership winner in the coming years. But if they do, it will because they were able to make strategic extensions like this one.

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