Stability and ability in strong supply as Raiders look to 2023

When Raiders coach Ricky Stuart returns to pre-season training in November and starts plotting his course for 2023, he will be surrounded by familiar faces – a group of men determined to make up for an inglorious exit to a glorious late-season surge that carried them to the finals for the third time in four years.

Stability is sure to be a buzz word in the national capital as 16 of the 17 players who took to the field in Friday’s semi-final loss to Parramatta suit up again in lime green for another shot at the club’s fourth premiership.

Englishman Ryan Sutton heads for the Bulldogs next season after coming off the bench in his 75th and final game for Canberra while Josh Hodgson, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and Adam Elliott are also moving on.

After helping the Green Machine to a grand final in 2019, Hodgson has been restricted to just 30 games in the past three seasons due to serious knee injuries, but in Tom Starling and Zac Woolford the Raiders have the right men to fill the void left by the crafty Englishman’s departure to the Eels.

Warriors-bound fullback Nicoll-Klokstad played only one game after Round 11, with Xavier Savage making the No.1 jersey his own, while Elliott was a standout in his first and last season as a Raider, averaging 101 run metres and 27 tackles per game.

Among a host of quality forwards who donned the lime green in 2022, Kangaroos aspirant Hudson Young was a revelation, producing career-best figures in every statistical category and announcing himself as a genuine match-winner.

From his late try to snatch victory in the opening round against the Sharks to his audacious kick and chase to pull the game out of the fire against the Knights in Round 15, Young made a habit of coming up with big plays at the right time.

Such was the tightrope that the Raiders were forced to walk after a sluggish 2-6 start to the season that even after that great escape against Newcastle they still sat in 11th place on 14 competition points.

A controversial two-point loss to the Dragons a week later could have spelled the end of their finals aspirations but the Raiders bounced out of the bye round a rejuvenated outfit, downing the Storm in Melbourne in Round 17 courtesy of a magical piece of skill by rookie winger James Schiller in just his seventh NRL game.

“We’re the hunt, there’s no doubt about that,” Stuart prophetically mused post-match.

“I just need us to play with that type of spirit and that’s why I love coaching them because they’re a tough bunch of blokes and they’re spirited.

“It was great performance by James, he’s a young bloke and that try he scored in the second half, the grubber kick, that was a very good try.”

Wins over the Warriors and Titans followed before a 20-point loss to the Panthers left Stuart’s men in ninth place with four games to go against the Dragons, Knights, Sea Eagles and Tigers.

The phrase ‘there’s no such thing as an easy game in the NRL’ gets bandied around a lot but on disclosed form during the first 21 rounds, it’s hard to imagine the cards could have fallen much better for the Raiders.

Or so it seemed.

The Red V fought to the death in Round 22 before Ricky’s boys prevailed by two points before they found themselves staring at top-eight oblivion when they trailed the Knights 22-8 at half-time the following week.

In need of a hero or three the Green Machine found Joseph Tapine, Josh Papalii and Jack Wighton, the enforcers combining with a slick exchange of passes before No.6 scooted away for the match-winner.

Far less resistance was offered by Manly and the Tigers, the combined scoreline across the final two games reading 104-16 as Canberra marched into September on the back of seven wins in their last eight games.

With Papalii and Tapine again leading from the front with 37 runs and 384 metres between them, the Raiders continued their dominance over the Storm in Melbourne with a 28-20 victory in week one of the play-offs before the tightrope finally snapped in a 40-4 loss to the Eels.

A quick scan of that very familiar team list will give Stuart plenty of confidence he can celebrate a decade at the club in style, with Wighton and Jamal Fogarty calling the shots, Savage, Seb Kris and Matt Timoko adding the punch out wide and the jolly green giants taking no prisoners up front.