BY DAN

Owen Pattie wants more minutes. Daine Laurie wants to be a six. Both halves are training with the ‘firsts’. Summer is here. Competition is back. Ricky Stuart is in his happy place.

We’ve written about this before: Ricky Stuart just wants competition. It drives his philosophy for a successful rugby league team. It’s the cornerstone of every team he builds. Whether it be Danny Levi to push Zac Woolford and Tom Starling, Sione Finau to make sure Matt Timoko and Xavier Savage improve, or Kaeo Weekes to push (and usurp) Chevy Stewart, Stick loves to bring players together to see who will earn the right.

Sometimes this results in outcomes that we didn’t anticipate. If you’d asked me before the 2024 season where Chevy Stewart would be before the 2026 season, I would have told you he was about to have a massive year (oh look I did). Instead Kaeo Weekes won that battle, had his own breakout year in 2025, and is now (hopefully) preparing to build on that. Similarly, Danny Levi joined the squad before the 2023 season, trained the house down in pre-season, earning the plaudits of the coach along the way. It was enough to put him ahead of Zac Woolford (until broken jaws got in the way) and eventually led to the departure of both (oh how the road winds).

This approach is clearly built into the fabric, to the extent that you can see it coming out in the players statements. Owen Pattie’s comments to the Canberra Times recently may well have been crafted by Stick himself, highlighting a desire to push, and outrun, his competition at the rake position:

Whether that’s on the bench or starting, I want to be making a headache for the coaches about who they want to start and who they want to put on the bench. I’ll do everything I can to hopefully be in one of those two positions

This is the exact kind of thing that Stuart brought Jayden Brailey to the club for – to make sure Pattie is pushing Starling, and that Starling doesn’t think 2025 was enough.

You can see how pervasive this discourse is in its reflection in other parts of the squad. Witness newly minted Raider (that’s Raiders green my friend and don’t you fucking forget it) Daine Laurie saying he wanted to push Ethan Strange for the starting six position.

I’d like to play in the halves, probably five-eighth, I can play fullback as well. But probably in the halves, probably six or something like that.

Now far be it for me to make bold claims this far out from the season, but while I’m happy for Daine to be staking a claim for his hopes for the season, my preference would be that future immortal Ethan Strange continues to play at his best position, and the one he signed a massive extension 18 months ago to play. You’ve seen this rant in these pages (and others, shouts to the Sydney Milk Syndicate for pushing this barrow too).

But this isn’t about actually taking the spot, though there’s little doubt Laurie would love to. For Stuart he never wants anyone to feel too comfortable. And while Strange seems to have comeback from his Kangaroo tour with a joie de vivre rugby league and a deep desire to be elite, his position has always been the one with no obvious ‘other’. The tendency is to see his body-by-Michaelangelo and assume it’ll be perfect forever, but Stuart not only wants to make sure he continues to develop his game, but wants to make sure he has another plan if it doesn’t.

And that of course brings us to arguably the hottest competition in the squad; the starting halfback. We’ve been fascinated at the decision to get Black into town (as we outlined again, and again, and again last week). Was it a bet on Black? A comment on Sanders? Recently comments from Raiders recruitment manager Chris Hutchison outlined the intent of bringing Coby Black to town to the Canberra Times:

Obviously [he brings] depth to those halves spots. He’ll be vying for a first-grade spot in behind [Ethan Strange] and Sanders. Nothing changes with Sanders. It’s just someone comes in that adds a bit more depth in that spot.

From those comments it just seems to be another foray into ensuring competition, the latest manifestation of a philosophy that has driven Stuart throughout his time at the club.

While the outcome of each of these mini-battles, and others throughout the club, is unknowable, one thing we can be sure of is that Stuart will make players fight for their positions. It will be how he structures the side, how he solves problems, how he drives recruitment decisions. Again and again. It’s the core of his coaching approach, the fulcrum around which all else operates.

It’s not without risk. It instils winners and losers, and can lead to players wanting to go elsewhere in search of more assured footing. Without clear expectations and communications it can lead to players feeling frozen out (or actually being frozen out). It’s a test of Stuart’s communication skills and his ability to coalesce the side around an idea and a common goal. Given the stakes were raised by 2025, it makes the outcomes and impacts so much more severe if he can’t.

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