BY DAN

It’s hard to say who didn’t make a leap in 2025.

Kaeo Weekes went from question mark to exclamation point. Ethan Strange went from strength to strength, and he was already pretty strong. Hudson Young played Origin and for Australia, and maybe, just maybe, might be recognised outside Canberra as one of the best backrowers in the competition. Corey Horsbrugh had his second career year in three years.

People did good.

But for 2026 to outstrip 2025 there’s going to need to be more. How much do they need? More. More success. More records. To be a different animal, and the same beast. The pathway of the righteous is beset on all sides by the challenges of jumping off a jump. Can Ethan Strange get even better, even while managing a new halves partner? Can Weekes keep running through entire sides when everyone is expecting him to do just that? How many more years of high-level throughbread-ing does Joe Tapine have?

The Raiders, in short, need people to keep leaping. They can’t necessarily rely on the same people to do it. So who will?

As always we have three categories of leaps. When we first used this categorisation in 2023 we described it thusly:

The first leap – from outside in – the fringe footy career to regular player – think Zac Woolford last year. The second leap is from squad member to starter. I would argue Xavier Savage made that leap last season. The third and final we’ll call the Hudson Young jump, or starter to star.

– Me here

First things first. Remember those heady days of hoping that Stick would give Zac some burn? Back then he was our only nine who could pass. Now Canberra has two, one of who might be the future of the team, and has found a way to make the most of Tom Starling’s other strengths. Just another little spotlight on the growth this squad has made.

Secondly I would highlight these are more normative predictions than descriptive. These are what I hope to occur, rather than necessarily what I think will occur (will scatter that through too). If the Raiders are going to be even better in 2026, these are the necessary leaps that need to be taken.

Outside in: Sione Finau

In a sense his mere presence elevates the floor already. With him breathing down Matt Timoko’s neck, there’s nowhere from him to hide from his defensive frailties. With Finau providing heat behind Xavier Savage, every handling error will take on greater weight. With Sione an option, there will be less forgiveness if a Seb Kris has a quiet few weeks.

Sione is a yardage monster like his good friend Sav Tamale. He’s also got a handy clip of pace, and while he might not keep up with X and Kaeo, he wouldn’t be embarrassed. He’s the kind of all-weather terrain vehicle that can slot in almost anywhere in the centre-three-quarters.

At the Dragons, Finau was watching first grade more than he was playing it. Turning 24 this season, he’ll be keen to stake a claim for first grade at some point in this contract with the Raiders. The rest of the back five is equally young, so there’s no ageing out here. It’ll just be a scrap for minutes. But if Sione makes the leap, either other players will too, or they’ll get left in his wake.

Squad to starter: Noah Martin Matty ‘Muffins’ Nicholson

We wanted to put Noah Martin here. He’s part man, part beast, but he’s also biding his time to find a way to pile enough minutes together to make a meaningful impact. As we’ve covered here, we’re not even really sure how Noah Martin fits into the a game-day squad. On the depth chart he’s arguably the fifth best backrower, the seventh best middle. In any realistic scenario where he’s playing a lot of football this season, it means that it’s gone really wrong for a host of other players.

We could be accused of cheating by selecting Matty Nice. He was a starter last season after all, being the preferred backrower in the vast majority of his 11 appearances. But a significant injury robbed him of his athleticism, and when he returned at the end of the year he looked like a man in need of a pre-season.

At his best he provides hard-line running, a weapon that together with Timoko will provide Ethan Strange with a double-headed dragon threatening the line while Kaeo Weekes lurks out the back. His lateral agility is improving, and Coach Stuart mentioned last season how much better his athleticism would be after a second pre-season. So there are good reasons to be optimistic.

But more than what he brings, it’s what he allows that is such an advantage. With him manning the right edge, it frees up Zac Hosking and Simi Sasagi to be weapons-of-choice; deployable in a multitude of ways to give the Raiders a match-up advantage wherever they need it. Lightning in a bottle. Open up and dispense at will.

Starter to Star: Ata Mariota

Josh Papalii is (probably) retiring. Joe Tapine cannot possibly get any better, and is at the point of his career where he should start getting worse (relatively speaking). Corey Horsburgh made the leap last year, hopefully a permanent elevation. Morgan Smithies will be fighting for a spot in the 17. Pack improvement in the middle might be entirely dependent on how close that Ata Mariota can go to fulfilling his vast promise.

We got glimpses last season, and the fundamentals were good. Career highs in games, minutes, metres, post contact metres, offloads. His ratio of runs over eight metres was in line with Taps and Papa, despite the increase in volume. He was still deployed in limited minutes, but he’s ready for more this year. And the Raiders need it. Not just for this season, but as a marker of a new generation of middles coming through the fill the gap that Papa and Joe will one day leave.

The Raiders don’t need miracles in 2026. They need to do what they did in 2025, just more of it, and more often. They need this next wave to fill the space the changing days leave behind, proving that what we’ve seen in them isn’t just possibility, but performance.

We’ve often noted in these pages that development isn’t linear, isn’t guaranteed to anyone. Leaps are earned in a thousand unseen moments before a player ever hits the field. Years of work coalesce in a moment, a day, a season. You can never be certain when they’ll hit. But for these players, maybe this is the year.

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