BY DAN

In 2025 the Canberra Raiders were a powerful machine. Careening into corners at pace, jolting and dragging and swerving around the track like Max Power making you feel the G’s. At the helm of this was Jamal Fogarty, an older head with a cannon attached to his hip. He guided the machine, in style and patience, in willingness to test the edges, in ability to flip a field with a kick. Canberra followed his leadership, and every one of his 31 years and near 120 games of NRL footy.

In 2026 they may turn the reins over to Ethan Sanders, who has 114 fewer games and ten years less experience than Fogarty. The machine now has a new operator and the controls are new. The decision to pursue this new driver came when the machine wasn’t as developed, as formidable young parts were going to be given plenty of space to learn together. A few years of the bumbling into corners was going to be fine. Everyone would learn.

This was even seen in Jamal Fogarty’s comments to the Canberra Times in August about Ethan Sanders which emphasised the need for time and patience.

Obviously he’s the club’s long-term halfback moving forward and another pre-season for ‘Eth’ will be great for him….I just hope the fans and the Canberra supporters don’t just judge him off the first month of football. Give the kid two, three, four years in the Raiders jersey to get used to the system and used to the boys…I definitely think he’s got something about him. He just needs a bit of time.

But the success of 2025, the failure of the end of the season, and the hunger that has resulted, has put the Raiders positioning around Ethan Sanders in tension with the trajectory of the rest of the squad. All of a sudden there’s no time to waste, no days to spend building connections not meant to deliver paydirt until 2028. There’s premierships to win now, at least they hope, and they could be balking at turning the keys over to the rookie.

Captain Joe Tapine told media that fans should “stick with us. We’re still building. We’re still young, and the best is yet to come”. That’s a fine balance you’ve got there Joe with no direct timeline, but it’s hard to think the fairweathers out there are going to be turning up if Canberra are 7 and 8 and struggling their way to the bottom of the playoffs (not you, you’re sick in the head like me, you’d be watching regardless).

Canberra’s initial plan had been to try to mitigate the risk. Find a more experienced halfback out there that can carry the can in 2026. Clifford, Smith, Ilias. The list is probably longer than the public knows. This way the weight in 2026 isn’t on undeveloped shoulders, but at least someone more familiar with the pace of the top line. much like NFL rookie quarterbacks – the veteran takes snaps early before handing over once the heat’s out of the season.

But that plan seems to have forked in recent weeks with the interest in Jonah Pezet. He’s a more developed half than Sanders, but only marginally. He’s been better in first grade, and would be a surer bet, but if they sign him on more than a loan deal, it becomes an either/or thing with him and Sanders. This is similar to when the Raiders extended Kaeo Weekes through to 2029. One or the other would work out, the other wouldn’t stick around if they didn’t.

Is that a slight on Sanders progress? At this stage it’s hard to tell. The initial approach to Pezet was a loan deal for 12 months. It seems to have moved beyond that, and it’s hard to not take the view that if the Milk were choosing they’d be taking the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Given the acquisition of Pezet still feels like a long shot, even with recent reporting, this could be statement as a marker of confidence – or lack thereof – in Sanders ability not just to deliver immediately, but potentially at all. While Jamal Fogarty is pleading for fans’ patience, there’s a chance here the club is not ready to offer Ethan the same.

The last time there was a plea for time and patience for a young left footed half at the Raiders it ended with him being pushed out the door on the back of around the same amount of first grade games (Mitch Cornish, I still believe). That’s not to say it’s happening again, but precedent exists and the pathway looks familiar. Here’s hoping it’s just the noise of a rugby league media machine whirring into action. But if it is, it becomes a remarkable error by the club in letting Fogarty go to keep a promise to Sanders, one that could alter the pathway of a team that is ready to be competitive, if only it had a half to drive them around.

It would also mean a third departure from the club’s youth policy in the season it had effectively begun. Trey Mooney gone, in order to keep the ageing Papa. Chevy Stewart, once the poster boy of the youth movement, half a foot out the door and already firming to be the starter at St George next year. And potentially with him, Sanders, the other great hope, gone before either had a chance to really even disappoint in first grade.

Would it be a full-scale abandonment of the policy or just an adjustment on the fly, an attempt to manage the tension in the timeline, the fact that Ethan Strange is ready, man, and Pattie, Martin, Tamale etc aren’t far behind. Stragglers won’t so much be left behind as asked to find their own way. How this would land with Ethan Strange remains to be he seen. Publicly he’s been solidly in Sanders’ corner.

I like playing with Sando, so I don’t know if we’ll need to put much work into it. I think we already gel pretty well. I grew up playing in rep teams and stuff with Sando, so I know his game and he’s easy to play with.

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Would a lack of patience with Sanders loosen Strange’s happiness with Canberra? It was always the curiosity of this approach. Coach Stuart isn’t always a patient cat, and has an impeccable record for judging when to get on and/or off the bus. The ‘this will take three or four years’ was proven wrong in year one, and now he’s not interested in waiting to see if the original pathway will be followed. He’s adapting, and that may mean a different role or none altogether for Sanders.

This is a key question to be resolved this offseason. Is Ethan Sanders the now, the future, or the never? By the end of this offseason, we’ll know.

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