Goodbye Hudson?

The Canberra Raiders are withdrawing their four-year offer for Hudson Young. The Raiders are losing one of their best players. It’s a blow to their legitimacy, and a threat to the equity of the league. It isn’t just a negotiation collapsing; it’s a concession this the Milk could fight the power, but they couldn’t win.

There are no winners here, except for Huddo. This paves the way for him to sign a $900k deal with the Papua New Guinea Chiefs and leave the club. There will be no need for the Hudson Young rule. I’ll tell the children.

That’s the only interpretation I can come up with. From the club’s statement it seems someone has finally had a conversation with Huddo in which he’s successfully articulated what we’ve known all along – that he really wanted that tax free cash of Papua New Guinea. Canberra were willing to fight the good fight, but my guess is the club decided it was pointless playing hard ball anymore. There’s no point keeping a guy if he doesn’t want to be here. It all screams a slightly more convoluted – and hopefully genial – version of the George Williams debacle.

There may be a version of events where another offer is coming, or some other manna from heaven. The statement doesn’t suggest that is happening. For those still holding on to that idea I bear no grudge. Stranger things have happened but it’s hope pulling that string for you.

While the pathway for getting there is somewhat surprising, the end outcome isn’t. Since the Chiefs’ offer became public it seemed inevitable that he would be leaving. He and his management have been angling for the NRL to let him take the greater cash, but less cap value, from the Chiefs. Vlando was talking shit, Hudson was saying nothing, while Ricky was (inexplicably in hindsight) expecting a deal to be done. Meanwhile Huddo’s best mate was in the process of leaving the club. Canberra were a potato short of a salad, and digging like Chief Wiggum.

This is a problem for the league. The Chiefs aren’t peeling away talent from teams too successful for their own good like the Riff. They’re taking from the small clubs. The ones that furnish their membership from hope, not repeated success. When cashed-up clubs can pick and choose like this it makes it hard to build optimism, membership, or sponsorship.

This exacerbates the challenge for a club that routinely faces difficulty in attracting or keeping talent, and threatens the equity, and therefore long-term sustainability of the league. Expansion is meant to strengthen the game. Now it just makes a segment of the league fear for their future.

Canberra make big bets to get talent. When those gambles come off, and the Raiders still lose the talent, it is debilitating. Hudson was a perfect example of that. A player they routinely took risks to get the best out of him. They signed him off the back of a PED suspension. They backed him when he not once, but twice, eye-gouged players during his rookie season.

What they got out of that was the prime of an elite backrower. One that was just as crazy as the team needed him to be. His work rate in defence, his unique mix of talents in attack, were the precise combination of attributes the Raiders have needed. They’d primed him to be the next leader, to be a Raider for life. They wanted to give him the city. He decided that wasn’t enough.

And now *pooof* that’s gone because Vlando is as willing to capsize the game for interests outside it. This should be the blackest mark on his resume, but it’s basically charcoal at this point.

There will be some that will be hopeful that the cap space will be utilised to great effect. But it’s hard to be optimistic. The point of cap space is to sign someone like Young. Instead the Raiders will have to make do with what they have. The players they’ll fill his spot with demonstrate the approach they’re forced into. An Englishman (Nicholson), a local prodigy (Martin), or two players unable to get a regular gig elsewhere and connected into the role (Hosking and Sasagi). The Raiders are shopping at the op-shop and the rich kids are still burgling their home. It’s all very late capitalism.

I’m struggling to see an upside. There will be some who claim that the risks to Hudson’s body, and of the size of the deal the Raiders were offering, were outsized to the benefit. I obviously don’t agree with that. Hudson’s an athletic marvel, as hard as a worker as there is. He has the capacity to play across the back row, and will find a way to maximise the output of his body and be effective.

Further, the reported deal with the Chiefs does not include a ratchet with an increase to the salary cap. Clint Newton fails again I guess (and so does Sam Ayoub). Normally a ratchet clause is included in deals to account for increases in the salary cap. But that has been notably excluded in offers to Young, both from the Raiders and the Chiefs. This turns Young’s deal into a fixed cost rather than a rising one.

Given the broadcast deal recently signed by the league, there is going to be a substantial increase in the cap when a new collective bargaining agreement is negotiated. That needs to be in place for the 2028 season, the start of this deal. That could increase the cap to $20m per team (up from $12m now) per most reports, making the proportional impact of Young’s deal much less onerous the longer it goes on. Ah well, that benefit too is captured by the Chiefs.

The only question is what happens next? Do we have to wait all the way until 1 November to be put out of our misery? Will the club keep Young in town for this life of his current deal? Or will Stuart’s emotional approach to these things take over? The statement seems to both want to be respectful but also clear – Huddo’s time is done. It’s just how long the clock ticks for.

To be honest there’s no good approach. Do you now prioritise the future at the risk of looking stubborn and vindictive? Do you still give him game time when it’s not clear how healthy he will be come round one? Which master do you heed? 2027 or beyond?

These are all questions for tomorrow. Today we hardy Raiders brethren are faced again with the existential threat to our existence, the promise that the grass is always greener somewhere else. Canberra will survive, again, because there is no other option. Hope is what we hold on to. But it feels sparse now.

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