BY DAN

The Canberra Raiders are acting out of necessity.

Jordan Uta will debut this Thursday against the Dolphins. It reflects the dire state of Canberra’s forward stocks, stripped bare by injury and circumstance. Whether Uta is ready for the challenge, fate has determined the outcome. Now hopefully Uta, and the Raiders, can meet the challenge.

It’s a rapid rise for Uta. This time last year he was playing u/19s Origin. He only had seven games in NSW Cup last year, and the majority of them were off the bench. This season he’s been a mainstay on the edge for the Cup side, a hard-line running bullocking backrower. He’s not a ball-player like Huddo, and he won’t be the defensive salve of the NSW starter either. In a perfect world he’d still be playing there this weekend, developing his craft. Whenever he’s been asked about Uta playing recently, Stick has been clear that he would prefer him still playing Cup. But life isn’t perfect, and sometimes you have to sing before the music starts.

His rise has been influenced by the club’s availability crisis as much as his performance. The list of backrowers that are out is longer than the list of excuses that led to me getting a quarter-pounder for lunch. Even then, Stick probably would have stuck with a bench of hookers and misfits, getting by with ‘middle’ Daine Laurie and Ata Mariota as his sole bench-middle. But now Laurie and Mariota have been brought into the starting side by the Origin selection of Hudson Young and Ethan Strange. There simply isn’t another experienced body around.

Uta has been chosen because he’s the most first-grade ready forward available. That’s exciting, until you realise the only other options were Jake Clydsdale and Vena Patuki-Case. Both (and Uta) will likely make quality first graders in the coming years, but right now playing Cup was where they were meant to be. It’s next man up, but it’s getting to the extreme. It’s worth noting Clydsdale is also in the 19, but in the absence of a club-sanctioned celebration, we’ll assume the intent is to not use him unless circumstances intervene.

Uta will, in some way, help the middle rotation. That will be either be by freeing up Mariota to shift into the middle, or by becoming part of the middle rotation himself. His physical capacity at either position isn’t a question. He’s a big man and won’t shirk from contact. A defined middle stint might even make his job easier and more defined. 15-30 minutes through the middle forty to allow Joey Taps, Corey Horsburgh and Morgan Smithies the breather they need to get through somewhere around 60 minutes each.

But then again, injuries seem to follow Raiders’ backrowers in a shadow at the moment, so he may be called on to play significant minutes there. That will be a challenge. The ‘Phins strength comes from Isaiya Katoa using his two-pace ball-playing to isolate defenders on the edge. With runners like Farnworth, or Finefeuiaki, or Lemulemu off his shoulder, it just makes it that much harder. Mariota, more than fifty games deep into his first-grade career will have a hard time. One hopes Uta doesn’t have to play the game on ‘expert’ his first time with the controller.

But that’s where Canberra are at right now. It’s a wonder that there aren’t more announced debutants this weekend, given the paucity of options. They need some ballast in the middle, to compete, if not to win. Just enough to not burn out the incumbents out on this period before reinforcements start returning in a fortnight.

This game is getting close to a must win, at least a ‘very nice to win’, and doing it with the skeleton staff only heightens the difficulty. Canberra can ill afford to fall further behind the peloton, let alone the fancy pants at the top of the league who are starting to break away. Keeping the longship floating until there’s more Vikings to row is the aim of the game. And by necessity, Jordan Uta is going to have to do his share.

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