BY DAN

About twelve months ago, Xavier Cacciotti was seen as part of the Raiders’ future at hooker. Today, he’s signed on as part of Cronulla’s plans for 2026. A year ago, that shift might have sparked concern. Now, it simply highlights how deep Canberra’s hooking stocks have become.

At the time Canberra’s future at the position was dire. The Raiders were knocking at Danny Walker’s door and Sam Burgess wouldn’t let them in. They were squinting at Danny Levi, and Tom Starling, hoping there was a proper rake somewhere. After missing out on Walker, the club pinned their hopes on Owen Pattie, Shaun Packer, and Xavier Cacciotti to deliver what the club had craved since Josh Hodgson’s knees cratered.

Cacciotti was a big hope, not just a name in the list. While Owen Pattie was definitely the ‘face’ of the youth movement, Cacciotti was an unquestionable talent, a crafty rake consistently identified in the media as ‘one to watch’, a local that made the Australian Schoolboys team, and the club’s SG Ball player of the year in 2024. Losing a player with this pedigree, particularly a local boy, would normally hurt, if not for what had happened this year.

You know the story. Owen Pattie Kool-Aid-manned his way into the competition. Within weeks of his first-grade debut talking heads across the country were pointing at him as the future of the position. Not just for Canberra, but the entire goddamn competition. It was exciting. With Tom Starling leaning-in to his best features (running, tackling, and being a total fucking boss), the immediate future was suddenly bright. Pattie and Starling both signed extensions, and life felt a little bit warmer. The club added Jayden Brailey, a perfect ‘old-head’ accompaniment to the star potential of Pattie and others.

Even in the lower rungs of the depth chart went from sparse to clogged. Shaun Packer, who had played four games of NSW Cup over 2023 and 2024, established himself over 20 games of NSW Cup as a legit rake and potential support for first grade over the longer term. The club also signed Mitchell Brophy – current NSW Blues U/19 squad member – to a three deal that brings him to the top 30 in 2028. That doesn’t even include Luke Cannon, a running nine who, according to Mike from the Green Machine Podcast, runs like he was shot out of his last name (I’m paraphrasing based on a conversation I had with him yesterday).

With the immediate and future of the club at the position sewn up, it makes perfect sense that Cacciotti would go looking elsewhere, and that the club would be sanguine about it occurring. There’s only so many minutes for people to play, and resources to be spent on development. There’s only so many times you can press the big red button that bets on a player’s future. If you could keep them all, I’d have like 17 puppies.

But you can only feed so many, and so Cacciotti has found opportunity elsewhere. It’s good for him, and I wish him all the best. I’m a terrible judge of lower grades talent but people who know things rate him highly. He could likely be a talent in the NRL for a long time. Canberra already have a version of that in Owen Pattie, but it comes with more certainty. They also already have future bets in Brophy or Packer or Cannon. There’s simply no room at the inn.

That wasn’t so clear twelve months ago. Then the loss of elite talent would have been strongly felt. Now it’s the natural run-off of river flowing strongly. Canberra are running deep at nine. Losing a talent like this just proves it.

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