BY DAN

Holy fuckballs.

The Canberra Raiders will be without Simi Sasagi for Thursday’s matchup with the Wests Tigers.

Here’s hoping this is precautionary from the Milk. With the Thursday game giving them a “mini-bye” before their next matchup, this could be an option to avoid a risk to ensure an outcome in the next round. It’s a long season, and hamstrings are notoriously prone to re-injury. Better to make sure it’s a 100 per cent week than risk it at 70 per cent. NRL Physio suggested as much on Twitter.

I couldn’t imagine a player the Raiders could ill afford to lose more. Not only because of the form he is in, which has been more spectacular than Sidra Holland. But also because of the current drain of the depth chart they’re experiencing. Sasagi, with Zac Hosking, remained the last of the ‘deploy as needed’ resources, even if none of us wanting to move him. Now they are stuck with no depth, bit parts and finding yet another solution to an impossible problem.

Let’s start with what Canberra will miss on the field. Simi’s connection with Ethan Strange has been the Raiders’ best offence this season. The Milk have scored 46 per cent of their tries down the right hand side (compared to 33 on the left). Between Strange and Sasagi they have 8 line breaks and 10 line break assists. When good things happen, it’s been between their four hands. Now Strange will be on his own.

Will this limit Strange? To an extent – he’s looked in impervious form lately. But how much will that be constrained by the centre’s eyes being on him instead of Simi? His try against the Storm on Friday was an example of what happens when defenders have two problems to solve. Will there be enough of a threat outside him to hold those eyes? We’ll have to see.

The ramifications for the lineup are fundamental. Matt Timoko will play right centre, and Seb Kris left centre. If Sav Tamale is ready he could play left wing. Perhaps Stick was hoping to give him another week to get himself right. Perhaps circumstance has forced everyone’s hand. If that’s the case I hope Sav is feeling OK to go.

It may also be Daine Laurie, suggested as more likely be the Canberra Times‘ David Polkinghorne on Twitter. He’s certainly playing this week, as witnessed by the jersey ceremony. We’d initially presumed this would be in a bench role; deployed as required in support of the middle rotation as the game winds down. But now it’s clear there’s just as good chance that it’s on the wing, at least to start, allowing Tamale to ease in later in the game (or not at all). Laurie can do any role good enough. It’ll be curious to see what it looks like.

The real pressure here is on the forward pack. Many had assumed that the backline shuffle would occur anyway, allowing Simi to shift to right edge, and allow Zac Hosking or Noah Martin to take the job of reinforcing the middle. Well unlucky I guess, that’s not happening. Hosking and Martin will not get many breaks in this game, between the lack of edge rotation options (there’s Joe Roddy, and then it’s shifting a middle) and the effectiveness of the Tigers backrowers.

That will put even more pressure on the Milk to win the middle. The Tigers game plan is built on the back of offloads. Stopping offloads requires energy in defence. Well, now the Raiders will be putting big minutes into a heap of middles and hoping they can maintain the energy to whole time. If they can’t, it could get nasty. The Raiders have shown a predilection for losing control of games for periods to great cost. No Simi, and no reinforcements, could make that even impactful. Maybe this is how Jake Clysdale makes it from the extended bench to the real one.

It does put the Raiders firmly in the ‘underdog’ position this Thursday. The game is a sell out at Leichhardt, with the Tigers’ faithful primed by the form of their team and the opportunity to roar a little. This will be a loud, chaotic environment (all the more reason to expect Tamale might be gifted another week), and no sane person will back the Milk to get the job done. Stick will be telling the team exactly that, and maybe we get something remarkable.

More likely not, and we’ll just have to accept that. A million things have come for Canberra at the same time, and while they won’t accept it, there’s a good chance they’re just being set up to be the antagonist to the hero this week. But boy I tell ya. What if they did win?

Well, they’re going to have to do it without Simi Sasagi, for this week at least.

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