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Now the Raiders are really in a pickle. The club has spent years pushing a barrow uphill trying to get the NRL to support clubs engaged in junior development.
However club CEO Don Furner recently disavowed the junior development path in favour of a more aggressive recruitment policy.
The move was prompted by the loss of Anthony Milford to the Broncos despite the major investment of dollars and time the Raiders put into the lad.
The first step in the new squad-building policy was the signing of prize recruit James Tedesco from the Tigers. The sting of losing Anthony Milford began to fade and Raiders fans could dream of a new era. Sadly the wheels soon feel off the recruitment van, with Tedesco deciding to back out of his contract and stay at the Tigers.
This came hot on the heels of Kevin Proctor and then Josh Mansour both rejected substantially more money from Canberra to stay with their current clubs. Michael Ennis is expected to also take less money to stay in Sydney.
If the Raiders can’t even overpay guys to choose the lime green, and junior development is no longer a viable option, how is the club going to compete? This could well be what economists refer to as structural decline. The problems aren’t temporary, they’re permanent. The prevailing wisdom is that Canberra is cold, dreary and boring, and it turns out 19 to 23 year olds with ample money and few responsibilities don’t find that especially attractive.
The obvious answer is to re-think the new stance on junior development. Lock in those same kids before they know any better. Losing Milford was a crushing blow, especially to the club that passed him over when he was younger and then cynically made out like they were bringing him home. However to turn that disappointment into a blanket abandonment of junior development seems like cutting off one’s nose to spites one’s face.
The problem is that junior development is really, really hard to get right.
Several writers have glibly suggested that the success of the late 80s and early 90s with local juniors and club-developed players like Ricky Stuart and Laurie Daley is proof that juniors can be successful. But this thin assertion ignores the vastly different environment of today’s NRL.
Not only is every team more invested in junior development today, the addition of the Broncos, Titans and the Storm (with their heavy links into Queensland) has vastly increased the competition for talent in South East Queensland, a primary recruiting ground for the club. The Raiders may still be able to develop a Ricky Stuart (Mitch Cornish maybe?) or a Laurie Daley (Jack Wighton perhaps?) but there will be no Mal Meniga, Gary Belcher or Steve Walters to support them.
It is hard to know as an outsider just how much individual clubs invest in junior development. Certainly the Raiders National Youth Competition (NYC) team has been a perennial contender since the competition’s 2008 inception, including winning the inaugural premiership.
But that NYC premiership team is also a salutary lesson in just how tough a road junior development is. Of the 17 players who played for Canberra that day, only four are current regular NRL first graders – Daniel Vidot, Jarrod Croker Shaun Fensom and the current Dragons fullback Who Shall Not Be Named. In fairness Joel Thompson should also be included as he was a major part of that team but was injured for the final. Others from that team such as Jarrad Kennedy and Travis Waddell are fringe first graders at best.
So of the five genuine first graders to emerge, only two are still on the Raiders list as they enter their mid-20s and their peak playing careers. Subsequent to the 2008 team the Raiders have produced a further five players of note via the NYC – Paul Vaughan, Edrick Lee, Jack Wighton, Josh Papalii and of course Milford.
So over a six or seven year period the club has produced ten regular first grade players of whom they have retained seven. At that rate of player development the club is going exactly nowhere.
So if junior development is hit-and-miss, and external recruitment is almost entirely miss, what exactly do the Raiders fans have to look forward to?
Grim times most likely. Grim times.
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