BY DAN

When hope breaks it reveals character.

I don’t know what Canberra will do. Will they panic, drop every player, alter every plan and set fire to the season? Will they stubbornly refuse to adjust? Is there a simple change you won’t believe that will install a clearly missing confidence? What is the Raiders ‘secret stuff’ in a water bottle that can convince people playing scared that nothing can hurt them if they just believe? Is there a way to right the ship?

The first instinct is always change. This is clearly not working so why keep trying it? Definitions of insanity and all that. The landscape is so tumultuous right now that I won’t pretend to have a hard view. After Sunday my only instinct is that only Weekes, Strange, and Tapine are assured a spot next week. Ricky was clear that *standards* are not being met, so in the immortal words of Kevin Garnett, anything is possible.

One change that is almost certainly coming is that Xavier Savage is unlikely to play next weekend. His injury at the end of the game looked serious, and it will be interesting to see if it requires something terrifying like surgery.

The Raiders have plenty of options, from bringing Jed Stuart in as a straight swap, trying Michael Asomua there. Sione Finau has first grade experience and was brought to Canberra for this exact situation. Another option may be squeezing Chevy Stewart or Matt Timoko back into the squad, potentially by shifting Seb Kris to the wing.

My preferred outcome at this stage is *whoever can catch a bomb*. Canberra’s kick defusal rate has been pathetic this year, and it’s compounded their ill-discipline in other parts of the game. Their discipline has been bad enough. Adding additional sets through failure to clean up attacking, and semi-attacking, kicks has meant that the Raiders put themselves in astoundingly bad positions, having to survive long periods without the ball.

Seb Kris or Jed Stuart are the best bomb-catchers of that crew. If Stuart isn’t preferred, but Kris is, it might be the way that Matt Timoko finds his way back to first grade. Would that mean another shuffle of Simi Sasagi? That, or playing Timoko (or Stewart) at left centre, puts more people in less familiar positions. That’s not how you build a cohesive and confident basis, but the options aren’t exactly exciting either. But we’ll get to that when we know more. He’ll get scans Tuesday, but my guess is the choice is between a long time and a longer time out.

The most reactive change that people remain keen for is to drop Ethan Sanders. Jamal Fogarty was recently on the Bye Round podcast desperately calling for patience with young halves. Sanders right now is trying to conduct an orchestra farting their way through Mozart’s ninth. Blaming him for the sins of this side would be a mistake.

Sure I’d like to see him kick more to end attacking sets. I’d like to see him make better decisions in the redzone, attacking the run harder, and using his second rowers more often. But holding him to account for not being a good defensive centre, or because others in the team are busy treating Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’ as a cautionary tale, is unfair, and will destroy what confidence he may have.

The only reason I could see not persisting with him is if Stick thinks he needs to clear his mind in Cup for a week. In that case Daine Laurie will be a serviceable option. Coby Black is not ready in my opinion, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, and would require further adjustment to a side already trying to keep things from becoming chaotic.

An easier way to help Sanders would be change at the ruck. As I noted in the review, there was a case for not playing Owen Pattie when the idea was that it would make Sanders’ job easier. But it’s not, and the lack of creativity or kicking from the ruck is putting untold pressure on the kid to do too much. Get Owen on there. It may be more erratic, but they’ll attack more through the middle, which is precisely what this team was built to do.

Lord knows which way they’ll go from here. Wholesale changes are unlikely, but there needs some circuit breaker, some defibrillation, to set this side back on a regular beat. This team can be good, as it displays for small periods of time each game. But consistency is so far away. Confidence and trust in their process are fleeting, a memory of a happier time used to warm the mind while the rain settles in.

Hope of something great this year is now just that. Reality is finding a way to be a competent football team. Whether they do it or not will reveal character.

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