BY DAN

Just when you thought it was safe to hope, the rain comes crashing down again. Simi Sasagi will be out for four-to-six weeks with a shoulder injury. Hudson Young is likely to be watching next week from Origin camp. Canberra are now back where they were a few weeks back, scrambling for solutions to an injury crisis so well targeted you’d assume someone forgot to dip our backrowers in the River Styx.

So let’s recap. Hudson Young likely on Origin duty. Noah Martin, two ankle surgeries, return TBC and likely around eight weeks, which would put him around round 16 or 17 depending on recovery, match fitness, and a host of other considerations that I don’t have the brainpower to consider. Matty Nicholson had surgery in March and was expected back in three-to-five months. Given we’ve heard nothing we’d be leaning towards August rather than June. Joe Roddy won’t be back to round 14. Oh and Zac Hosking has been out the last two games with concussion.

Add Simi to the list. To paraphrase Dante (from Clerks, not the Italian fella), he wasn’t even meant to be in the backrow. It was only the injuries to the rest that had subjected him to the backrower curse. And now he’s had his career year shortened again but a twist of fate so cruel you’d swear Oedipus found out some bad news about his life partner (although, silver linings, you found your mum! Which is kinda how Sticky spun it to the Canberra Times). The news that with no structural damage it’s *only* four-to-six weeks is good for the Milk and Simi’s long-term objectives, but for this season it’s rude and uncalled for.

Putting this teamlist in place now will be like trying to put together a 1000 piece puzzle with 300 pieces and an angry monkey. Sure there are solutions but they’re not the ones you want. It puts us in the unenvious position of secretly hoping the Blues’ selectors are as dumb as they seem and don’t pick Hudson for NSW just so he can play for the Milk. Thank Christ Corey Horsburgh kinda ran over Billy Slater’s dog. It leads us to hope that Noah Martin, or Joe Roddy, or Matty Muffins, is able to find a way to meet with Jordan Clarkson.

Canberra needs bodies and they don’t have them right now. Zac Hosking – if healthy, which feels a pertinent thing to say at this point – will likely start alongside Ata Mariota. But even if they manage through with Ata and Zac, it means they’ll continue this farce of playing a bench made up of three hookers, an assortment of utilities and a collection of misfits so misfitted to the task at hand that Hollywood won’t even make a sports film about them (Oh sure, remake the Bad News Bears but don’t make a film about the Canberra Raiders).

At some point Coach Stuart is going to have to bite the bullet and play some players he’s been hoping to give time in Cup. I don’t mean Owen Pattie, though it seems unserious for him to be anywhere but first grade now. It means Jake Clydsdale or Jordan Uta has to be on the bench – and used – to ensure the Raiders have some ballast and power through the middle of the game. Daine Laurie can only take so many hit ups.

It also will take a toll on the squad elsewhere, with other players asked to dig deeper and play bigger roles that one would have hoped. Horsburgh and Morgs are going to have to play big minutes and hope it doesn’t have ramifications like it did last weekend when Smithies was roasted by Nathan Cleary for game-defining try. Jayden Brailey is going to have to continue to get through a weight of tackles on big middles searching for him in the line. Matt Timoko and Seb Kris are going to have be big parts of yardage work, because the regular middles are going to be doing their darndest to carry their defensive responsibilities.

Look, I don’t want to sound hyperbolic or dramatic but this is some fucking bullshit. It’s not anything but unfortunate – even if Stick, and the Times suggest otherwise. It would just be really nice if someone removed the stone of shame and instead attached the stone of triumph.

Alas the Raiders will have to work it out. Stick loves to do that. This season just feels like he’s having to do it every week, and it all comes back to injuries and unavailability in the backrow. Maybe in four to six weeks, when Simi, Noah, Joe, Huddo and maybe even Matty Muffins, are all back where they should be we can look back at this period and marvel at the mountain that was climbed. But right now I’m mostly pissed off.

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