BY ROB

Within minutes of the Raiders claiming their first minor premiership since 1990 the speculation machine kicked into gear. The general consensus was that the older players would get a well earned rest – Taps, Fog and Papa, maybe Horse or Huddo.

On Tuesday at 4pm the team list embargo lifted and we got our first look at a very different Raiders line up. No Weekes, Stuart or Sasagi. No Strange or Fogarty. No Tapine or Papali’i. No Starling. No Young and Hosking.

In their place are Stewart, Asomua, Cook, Sanders, Levi, Mooney, Waitere and Roddy. I say “in their place” but this side has been reshuffled like it was a deck of cards in Vegas. Pattie is starting hooker, with Horse and Mariota the starting props beside him. Noah Martin and the returning Matty Nicholson have been given the job of filling in for Young and Hosking, with Smithies taking up the lock position.

On the bench we see two familiar faces and two new ones. This could possibly be the final first grade appearances for both Levi and Mooney in green – Levi’s contract ends this season and Mooney has been given permission to talk to other clubs. Next to them are Manaia Waitere and Joe Roddy, two NSW Cup juniors finally getting their proverbial moment in the sun. Kain Anderson is able to be part of the slew of changes, resting Matt Timoko because he’s done a lot of work this year.

Sticky’s approach is two-fold: more minutes for the likes of Sanders and Pattie, both of whom will have a greatly increased workload in 2026 and blooding the four debutantes Asomua, Waitere, Anderson and Roddy in the heat of battle.

While the Raiders have their first week of finals sorted (pretty much) the Dolphins remain a chance to scoop up 8th spot. For them to stay alive two things need to happen: firstly they need to knock off the Raiders by a decent margin, and then hope that the Bunnies do the same to the Roosters.

Provided that the Bunnies deliver on the first half of the equation the ‘Phins will be playing a desperate, do-or-die brand of footy. They can’t play conservatively in this scenario, particularly if Souths only win by a small margin.

However if the Roosters prevail then this match will essentially become an end-of-season trial – I wouldn’t be surprised if Coach Woolf rests some of his big names in the event of Sunday’s game becoming meaningless finals wise.

In Conclusion

There’s no point in writing about defence and attack this week. For the Raiders this game is now a formality. It’s a chance for finals-bound individuals to tune up some skills, for youngsters to show that they can make it in first grade and for possibly-future-former Raiders to give us one last glimpse of what they can do (for us at least).

So sit back and enjoy 80 minutes of weird limbo footy before the chaos of footy finals ticket sales hits us all on the Monday.

Baby Raiders by 56!

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