BY DAN

If there’s a position that the Canberra Raiders can withstand a depth chart challenge, it’s the back row.

Matty Nicholson left the trial game after ten minutes on Saturday with a shoulder subluxation, which for those of us whose Latin is merda, means he partially dislocated his shoulder. According to the Canberra Times, the medical staff still found ‘good strength’ in the shoulder, and there’s hope he will still be ‘ok’.

What ‘ok’ means isn’t clear at this stage. A squiz at reputable medical sources (i.e. not ChatGPT) suggests a wide variety of outcomes, from two weeks for minor subluxations to four months and beyond to more severe dislocation. The risk of re-injury is not insignificant, suggesting conservatism with return times is something that should be adopted here.

Before we get too forlorn, we’d note that the club tends to lean ‘long’ in their publicly announced times for injury absence. If there’s optimism from the training staff, it’s a good sign the injury is not at the severe end of the range. Here’s hoping.

Still, it’s a cruel blow for Nicholson. He’s already had to get over a three-month layoff last season after a major injury to his syndesmosis and a fracture to his fibula. When he returned he looked underdone, and in desperate need of an off-season. Now he’s got that, he’s suffered another set back. It must be frustrating.

The club will be able to withstand the absence. If there’s one position they’ve got plenty of depth at right now, it’s backrow. If Nicholson isn’t ready to go in round one, I’d be interested in which of the three options they choose to deploy.

Zac Hosking filled the role last year, and does it well. The club started him in the middle in the trial, suggesting they want to reprise his role from last year of bench lightning through the middle. Similarly, Simi Sasagi has been used in the role in the past, but the club has seemed keen on using him as a centre this off-season – perhaps we’ll see how serious that is in the round one team list. Noah Martin has been a standout in the trial matches, and it’d be interesting to see if he’s ready to go at the top level.

To me this comes down to how ready the club thinks Noah Martin is, and how keen they are to maintain the Hosking/Sasagi/Mariota bench mob. That unit was devastating in the first half of last season, allowing the Milk to play with a rapidity through the middle forty in which they’d historically dropped off the pace. Martin has impressed, and it’s clear he needs a role – any role – in the top grade. He’s so far beyond Cup footy that, like Owen Pattie, it feels a waste of his time and potentially detrimental to his development. You can only learn so much running through defensive contact like it was finishing line tape.

Given how slow the whole side looked in the trial on the weekend, maintaining flexibility in deploying Hosking and Sasagi as relief suddenly feels more important. An alternative approach is to go hybrid: a twist in which one of Hosking or Sasagi starts, Martin replaces them, and the former moves to the middle. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d adopted that approach.

It’s a small challenge, one that the club can handle, and that Nicholson, while frustrated, shouldn’t be rush. The Raiders have the luxury of building for later in the season. After their performance in the trial there a bigger problems to fix in the coming weeks to ready for round one.

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