Offseason Shenanigans

The shenanigans were in full swing before the Canberra Raiders offseason had even begun.

Last week we had Hudson Young saying he was going to visit PNG, and that he was interested in the sweet, sweet cash. That was enough for us to suggest it was near a done deal. Then it wasn’t because the NRL jumped and said they needed to match the Raiders money, or at least get in the ballpark.

For the moment that has proven beyond the Chiefs’ wallet (in a cap sense, not in the practical reserves), who are now waiting until 1 November. We’ve speculated that’s to hope the ‘free market’ brings down Young’s ‘market rate’ to a number they’re more willing to pay.

Now Sticky has jumped into the discussion with some of the strongest quotes we’ve seen so far, telling the Canberra Times:

Hudson won’t go to market. He doesn’t want to play with any other club. He’s a Raider.

As he said to me, he doesn’t want to play for any other NRL club, but he wanted to weigh up the option to visit PNG because there’s a lot of money on offer.

That seems pretty confident by Sticky. He doesn’t normally go on the record with recruitment matters, and when he does it’s worth noting. He’s not batting a thousand, but when he speaks on record, there’s a good chance of his utterings becoming reality.

The claims from Stuart included that Young had been told he had to guarantee he was going to sign before he visited the Chiefs. Stuart said this “was out of the question” for Young.

I understand why Hudson wasn’t as enthusiastic about the offer when he wasn’t given the chance to go and explore the living arrangements, the facilities, because he basically had to tell them that he was going to guarantee the fact that he was going to be going there. And that wasn’t ever the situation with Hudson.

Since his initial comments Hudson has notably been quiet. Spotted hobbling around in the background of Raiders’ social media, it doesn’t seem like he’s really keen to give more quotes to either confirm or deny Stuart’s assessment.

It does strike me as a high-stakes game from Stuart. Unless he’s super sure that Young and he are on the same page, it could be seen as trying to railroad him into a decision. That could have the opposite effect than hoped and increase the likelihood Young leaves come 1 November. But if Stuart is right, then the Raiders could be much closer to a deal with Young than had seemed the case last week.

It’s a test of communication, of relationships, of strategy. Who is actually driving this bus? Is it the potential shenanigans of a manager, the relationship with a coach, or something else? How much money is enough value, and does anyone know what the market equilibrium for Hudson Youngs is? Maybe I need to go deeper into my economics textbook.

But Stuart’s timeframe is clear. If Young is staying, then he’s not going to market. Maybe we can take the opposite to be true, and the closer we get to 1 November, the more we can panic. We’re good at that in these pages.

All we can be sure of is that until Young confirms it himself, in either direction, that we’ll be subject to the public shenanigans of managers and clubmen, tugging at the shirt of the talent in an attempt to keep on a path it prefers. In the meantime, all we can do is wait and observe the maneuvering

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