BY DAN

When the Canberra Raiders had a need, Jayden Brailey delivered. But now that is holding the Raiders back, but there’s no perfect solution available to the Milk until reinforcements return. What’s a team with the season increasingly slipping out of their grip to do?

Jayden Brailey probably didn’t come to Canberra to play lock. When Canberra signed him it looked like Tom Starling might be walking out the door, and the Owen Pattie we know and love (dearly, fully, staringly) was more a promise vibe than an actual present. Brailey was meant to walk into the starting rake job he had at Cronulla, and for a period at Newcastle, and play a bit of the footy he likes to play. Decent service. Decent defence. Slightly less than decent knees.

Instead Tom stayed, and suddenly, much to his, and frankly most people’s, chagrin, he was taking Owen Pattie’s minutes on the bench. No one wanted this, except Sticky, who seemed intent on reducing the things that his young half Ethan Sanders had to manage. But then circumstances, well they didn’t so much intervene and kick down the door and puke down their front and then scream “Knibb High football rules”.

The game changed because Vlando had other plans. The Raiders pack fell victim to nine separate misfortunes and have been unable to play for large chunks of the season. Suddenly Canberra were looking for warm bodies to play in the middle. You can say a lot of things about Jayden Brailey. One of them is that he is a living, breathing, warm body.

He had played alongside Tom Starling at moments during the season. Normally the responsibility was flipped from what we are now used to. Starling would play 13, a jitterbug around the ruck rather than a ball-player. Brailey would simply do what he’d always done, when he’d been healthy. The risk was always two small bodies in the front line, so the Raiders never really let it run that long. Brailey was as likely to play less than 20 minutes as he was to play more.

But desperate times and all that. So, Canberra gave Brailey a run at 13. Against the Titans it worked. Brailey got through defensive work without negative impact. Handled the ball at first receiver when Sanders or Strange wanted to set up pass wider. 63 minutes, 30 odd tackles (one miss) and 74 metres running. The Raiders won and life was good. Maybe this could be the bandaid they needed until Simi or Noah came back, and Hosking could move back to the middle?

Canberra have lost the next three games that Brailey has played (all at lock). They’ve scored 40 points across the three games, conceded 86, and generally not looked really likely. Their middle defence in all these games has been full of effort but without impact. Tries have come repeatedly by contact from attackers crashing through the middle, either forcing a quick ruck or an offload that the Raiders never recovered from. Brailey is often around the legs in that tackle.

In attack Brailey, initially a useful connector, is now no threat to run. That’s not to say he won’t run, but more the opposition don’t really care if he does. If Tommy gets loose that’s a problem. Pattie showed it was a problem when he picked up the rock and got busy. But Brailey’s body, maneuvering through the line without Tommy’s pace or Owen’s dreaminess, doesn’t not require multiple eyes. It means that when he sends the ball on, as he does normally, Sanders, Strange and/or Weekes, have defender’s hands in their pockets.

Canberra have tried starting their plays deeper, and that might be why their shape always seems so lateral. Everyone is pushing wider hoping to find space. But there’s no space here. Here, there’s no space. When Daine Laurie was at the position against the Cowboys, he was more of a threat with ball in hand – as shown by the try he set up for Strange.

At the moment there really aren’t other obvious options. I was worried about playing Laurie there, but he did fine, but like Brailey against the Titans, maybe it’s an ‘everyone gets one’ scenario. More tape and more game plans would make that worse. Laurie will be filling in at six for Ethan Strange (Origin duty) this week. Joe Roddy will likely be part of the club’s plans to manage the absence of Hudson Young. Josh Papalii will likely return and provide some middle ballast, so perhaps the Raiders won’t need big minutes from Brailey at 13, but it still seems likely they’ll need to keep him there for the time being.

So far it seems it comes with a cost. It’s not the one that Brailey himself would have hoped to pay when he joined the club, nor how the team thought they’d be using him. But this season has been one trial after the other, and the Raiders have had to find solutions to problems they didn’t know they had. This solution, it seems, has not been a good one.

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