Tom Starling is bigger. 

Tommy has always fought above his station. Pound for pound the most powerful man on earth (I presume…who’s measuring that anyway). Evidently the weight of defence he’s had to undertake in his role holding down the middle has led him to believe that he needs more meat on his bones – the muscular kind. Steak and eggs has been the method, and five kilograms of muscle has resulted, as reported by the Canberra Times.

It’s a testament to his character and hopefully an insight into the focus of the club. Before the 2025 season Starling emerged as a surprise leader – consistently identified as the person speaking in breaks of the game. What he was saying is only known to those in the huddle, but noteworthy it was him speaking, and everyone else listening. Taking it upon himself to make these changes is good to see.

Leading by example is even better. Tom has always seemed a chatty bloke, but being a driver of standards seemed to be a role he embraced in 2025. If his commitment can drive behaviour elsewhere in the squad it could make the Raiders 2025 less flash-pan feeling. He says he’s driven by a desire to right the wrongs of 2025. I hope so, though aren’t we all?

It’s wonderful to see it drive Tom to leave nothing to chance. You also might suggest it’s a reaction to competition for roles. We’ve noted in these pages the possibility of Jayden Brailey coming for hooking rotation minutes. This kind of reaction is exactly what Coach Stuart hopes to engender through his competition philosophy. He has built desperation into the roster structure.

How good right? Ok maybe we need to calm down. It’s still January, we’re all looking for omens.

Jealousy at someone eating steak for breakfast aside (money’s too tight for steak), we’d warn about getting too excited about this, or at least drawing a straight line from weight gain to a big box marked ‘results’. The ghosts of pre-seasons past haunt a million cases of ‘he’s put on 5kg of muscle’. It’s the thinking man’s ‘training the house down’, a measurable improvement that we can point to as evidence something will be better. It won’t necessarily be the case though.

We only have to point back a few seasons to see that in action. Bailey Simonsson, coming off an injury interrupted 2020, spent the summer getting ripped, and returned from serious injury for the 2021 season with Christmas hams for biceps. We were very excited, hoping that would mean Simmo would take the league by storm. That didn’t quite happen. There’s no definitive lesson there, just a cautionary example about getting carried away with any of this noise coming out of pre-season.

So perhaps we need to take Starling’s admission with a hangover breakfast of salt. Starling’s strength for years has been the unique combination of his size and speed. Enough power in those glutes and shoulders to handle the big boys in defence, and enough clip in his heels to take advantage of tired bodies around the ruck. Is this a risk of upsetting that balance, removing a step that is his comparative advantage?

It takes on an even more curious tinge when we consider it through the lens of Peter V’Landys mythical, possible, maybe-happening rule changes. If the six-again rule is expanded, then there will be less need for muscle and more for pace. There’s a risk that Starling may have sacrificed the latter for the former and be punished for not being able to see into the mind of a madman about to flip the table on him. These changes made his career the first time around. Would he be ready to take advantage of them this time?

Thankfully Tom assures us that all is well.

All my metrics and stuff, my speed and everything’s all the same. Just having that bit extra weight in the middle always helps – bit more robust to wrestle the big boys

– Tom to the Times.

Then again it may prove prescient. Getting bigger may allow him to cover 13 as well, particularly if Vlando gets his way. You’ll remember Josh Hodgson covering a similar role in 2021, allowing him to play alongside Tommy, as the middle connection in an attack that simply didn’t have it. Tommy won’t play that role, his passing isn’t anything approaching Hodgson’s (though who’s is? *Swoooooooons*). But it could be a mechanism, a further utility flexibility to a 17 that is already dripping with it.

Ultimately at an individual level it will likely mean nothing. But as a macro level it speaks to a side not willing to leave things to chance. At this stage of the season, when we’re just hoping the work is getting done, Tom is doing that and then some.

Bring on the season.

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