THe Horseburgh Noise Continues

The Canberra Raiders grip on Corey Horsburgh feels more tenuous every day.

According to the latest reporting from Pete Badel, Big Red has a big red foot out the door, heading to Brisbane, and the Raiders are happy to watch him go.

Horse has become a target for the Broncos prop-focused recruitment drive after Payne Haas signed with the Bunnies, and the shock retirement of Corey Jensen this week. Matthew Lodge is also on their radar, but would present a much lower cost option than Horsburgh.

Interestingly Badel reports that not only are the Raiders happy to let Horsburgh test his value on the open market ahead of the 1 November deadline, they’re also happy to let him go back to Queensland. That’s as long as they’re not on the hook for money for him for the rest of his Canberra contract (apparently $650k for 2027).

This is a narrowing of the possible outcomes we’d been entertaining around these rumours. In the past we’d posited that allowing Horse to go to market may have been a mechanism to get a better read of his value – sort of an independent valuation of the prop. This would see everyone come back to the table with a clearer idea of value, and an easy path to a deal.

But the reporting that the Raiders would be comfortable with him leaving does suggest that pathway is no longer realistic. Indeed, it suggests that even if Corey doesn’t reach a deal with the Broncos now, one will come at some point in the future, be it before next season, during, or after.

Canberra’s comfort with Corey leaving is baffling, and can only really be explained by *some other thing going on*. The Raiders need Corey. They’re running out of effective middles, and the game plan relies on effective middles. There’s not a better prop on the market they could attract. There’s not a better one coming through their system. Horse is critical to their defence, to their meters, and to the linking of their attack.

It just doesn’t make sense from Canberra’s perspective. There’s a few ways to interpret that uncertainty. Maybe Corey does want out and his camp is trying to talk it into existence. In this scenario it wouldn’t surprise if the Raiders were resigned to losing him, rather than happy. The combination of knowing he won’t stick around, and the fact that they’ve already played this game in 2024 and 2021, means they’re sick of playing silly buggers with a player who is good, but has required more care than his talent level deserves.

A second interpretation would be that the Broncos want him, and are trying to talk it into existence without being accused of tampering. Badel is a likely candidate for reporting the thoughts on the Broncos, and maybe Corey’s manager, and not really the Raiders. Or at least not directly.

The complication reported in the Badel article is that the $650k that Corey wants isn’t a number that the Broncos can hit. They have already outlaid big cash for Mitch Barnett, and given an upgrade to Xavier Willison. With Jonah Pezet on the ledger for 2027 too, it’s arguably tougher for them to pay Corey starter money to be a bench prop.

But I’m unconvinced of that. 650 might not be the figure that counts against the cap, and the Broncos have always had ways of finding ways to cover the gap. It’s more likely to me that Horsburgh signs for a lower number and the gap covered in a way that is definitely consistent with cap rules.

This is the second eruption (in the pimple sense, not in the volcano sense) that has come recently around Horsburgh. Canberra have been non-committal in public, in that they’re not really even admitting this is an issue. But something is going on.

If the Raiders lose Corey it will be the final jenga piece in the collapse of their middle over this year. From the information we have it’s hard to tell how likely this is. If it eventuates, they can overcome it – effective middles aren’t that hard to find. But it would be much better to not have to start from a near beginning.

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