BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders have a plan to build for the future. To do this they are preferencing young talent over established, new ideas over old, a new pathway over what has been trod for decades.

Except with Josh Papalii.

Josh Papalii has been an exception in every sense of the word. On the field he’s been arguably the Canberra Raiders most important player for a decade. He’s played every position in the pack except hooker (he could play hooker. Let him play hooker Stick). He’s scored preliminary final winning tries, set up tries, tormented Paul Gallen, kicked goals. Shit Joey Taps said he could kick field goals if we let him. Let him kick field goals Stick. Off the field…well let’s just leave that.

The point is Papa is built different, as the kids once said. So in this plan to build for the future Josh shouldn’t be a priority, at least if we’re being epistemologically consistent. Yet he is.

The Canberra Raiders have offered Josh Papalii a one year extension. Donnie Furns had an epiphany. If Josh Papalii was going to stay in the NRL it had to be with God’s football team:

We were thinking he would go to England to finish his career, but he’s keen to continue in the NRL and it wouldn’t have seemed right to see him playing against us.

Buon fortuna! How lucky we are that the Raiders have turned on a heel to keep Josh Papalii. That they’re talking about this is a good sign. Papa wants to stay, the Raiders want him to stay. Is the money right? Near enough sounds like it will land a deal. It’s hard to tell if this falls into the retention process we’ve seen with Strange, Pattie, Martin, Hosking, Sasagi et al but if it does, then we’ll be celebrating one more year the biggest of Canberra’s big daddy’s.

Of course like Isaac Newton said, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (big league fan Zacster. Used to argue with Edmund Halley about the efficiency of the block play). Or as Def Leppard said, can’t stop the hurt inside when love and hate collide. But the rumours of the big Papa’s potential retention have coincided with the interest from Trey Mooney in other pastures.

Specifically last week he visited the Knights. Off days are fun for that stuff. Entering a bye week – a time where deals like this are done because players have time to talk to agents and partners and what have you – and it feels like we’re not talking about if but when. Maybe it’s not Newcastle, but given Mooney is reportedly keen on the opportunity to play more first grade, it would be a good place for him to build his new career.

To this end Coach Stuart is circumspect.

It’s more of a compassionate thing for Trey. He’s here for another two years. As a coach, I also have to do the right thing for Trey as a person. He needs to be playing NRL. He hasn’t been able to crack it here this year, but it’s not to say he won’t play this ear. But I don’t to do the wrong thing by Trey and a young footballer who needs to be playing NRL.

The easiest thing for me is to be greedy and keep Trey, and if he plays four or five games next year, great for us. It’ not good for Trey. As a person I don’t feel comfortable with that. As a coach it’s fantastic. But there’s coaches out there that wouldn’t give a stuff.

There’s a lot to parse here. The first is that Sticky isn’t talking about Trey in the past tense, but he does sound resigned to him leaving this off-season. Second, in true Stick form, he’s taking a negative and turning it into a recruitment selling-point. “Come to Canberra, we only want the best for your career”. You’ve seen him talk about that a lot when he talks about recruiting young stars (‘we’ll take care of your kids’). This is just a different manifestation of this.

The relative comfort with Trey walking about the door is likely not just a ‘we only want the best for you’. After all, Zac Woolford is playing in the Super League because the club wouldn’t let him take up a top 30 spot with the Dragons, instead making him play backup to Danny Levi. Stick said on the Xavier Savage documentary that he was ready to push X out the door. What’s best for the player generally coincides with what’s best for the club.

That is likely partially driven by Trey Mooney’s relatively disappointing progress. Don’t get me wrong, anyone watching Cup footy knows that Trey is the next best middle Canberra has. He’s been a devastating when he gets a head of steam, has all the skills. He has all the bits that will make him a great footballer given the opportunity. But his defence hasn’t come along as much as they want (according to rumour and innuendo), and that matches the eye test. He’s very Emre Guler-esque in defence – a massive body that doesn’t hit as hard as you’d think, or move at all well laterally.

And, of course, there is a further exception. Josh Papalii wants to stay in Canberra. That may well be the be-all-and-end-all of it. Canberra are choosing one year of Papa over a career of Trey Mooney.

That’s a gross oversimplification. The club is departing from their recent tradition to keep Papa, but it likely has a logic that goes: Mooney isn’t as good as we wish he was, Papa is, and will do a job for another year, and by that time there will be other young middles ready to make an impact. Myles Martin, Jake Clydsdale, Mitch Prest (I don’t know if he’s in the club’s plans but he’s always good when I watch Cup) are all possibilities, as is the fact they’ll need to find minutes and opportunities for Smithies, Noah Martin, Simi Sasagi etc in a first choice 17.

So it’s not quite hearts over heads. There’s an internal logic to it, even if the club would never talk about it that way (at least publicly). But it is clear that Josh Papalii is the exception to the youth movement. Trey Mooney is too, just not in the way that tugs the heart strings.

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