The 2024 NRL regular season is still a few weeks away but there’s plenty for our Premium Members to discuss over a schooner between now and then. Instead of recycling the usual clichéd pre-season rhetoric, Oscar is picking out some genuine NRL talking points until Round 1 kicks off in Las Vegas.
Let’s dive into some 2024 NRL Pre-Season Pub Talk.
Raiders Rookie Watch
The Canberra Raiders playing finals football last year with a -137 points differential is a testament to their DNA as a club under coach Ricky Stuart.
They’ve long embraced the gritty, underdog tag with a squad built around the likes of Jack Wighton, Jarrod Croker, Josh Hodgson, Elliott Whitehead, Josh Papali’i and Jordan Rapana… are you noticing a theme here?
The Raiders are entering – or are about to enter – a new era and Stuart will lean on an auspicious forward pack to welcome through Canberra’s next-gen talent in the backs; among them Ethan Strange (19 years old), Chevvy Stewart (18), Xavier Savage (21) and Kaeo Weekes (21).
Turning potential into first-grade quality performances will be the challenge for Stuart this year, and half that battle is deciding where each player best fits into this current Raiders squad.
Is Weekes a five-eighth or a fullback?
There’s an argument for both at time of writing, but this action from the 2023 NRL Pre-Season Challenge is still fresh in my memory:
Like any good fullback, Weekes gets on his bike the moment Tolutau Koula takes possession here.
He all but matches Koula for speed (no mean feat) and offers nice support back on the inside, but it’s Weekes’ time on the ball that I loved most. The slowing of the feet, the ball out in front, the turn of the hips – Weekes’ spacial awareness with multiple moving bodies around him is what allows Koula to finish what he started here.
These are all translatable skills into the five-eighth position but I like how natural Weekes looked in this fullback involvement…
Is Savage a fullback or a winger?
The latest evidence suggests that Savage’s time as an NRL fullback is over – at least for now.
From 13 games in NSW Cup last year, Savage started six at fullback (for five tries and no assists) before finishing the season with seven games on the wing (for seven tries and three assists). His speed is a point of difference out wide and from the highlights available, Savage has developed a knack for finishing in the corners.
Where Savage fits in at NRL level around the likes of Albert Hopoate, Nick Cotric and Jordan Rapana becomes the next question.
Is Strange a centre or a five-eighth?
It was difficult to leave Ethan Strange’s name off the notepad while watching the U19’s State of Origin game last year. NSW finished with six tries in that game and Strange was involved in five of them, albeit playing in the centres.
First impressions; Strange is great on his feet and is deceptively strong.
He’s got all the qualities of a natural centre or a running five-eighth:
Strange won’t set up tries like this every week, but this is not an action all NRL five-eighths can claim to do. A skip of speed to beat one, a step to beat another, a fend to beat a third – there’s a bit of young Cam Munster in how Strange moves across the ground here.
Outside the traditional halfback play of Jamal Fogarty, a young running No.6 like Strange could be a nice fit in this Raiders squad.
It’s actions like the one below that Canberra fans should be most excited about, though:
This is a repeatable action Strange will always have in his toolkit, either in the halves or at centre.
He’s got the speed to create an overlap from nothing and the hands to ice it. Put Matt Timoko on the end of this pass and Canberra suddenly have a very reliable and effective attacking option in good-ball.
How long he spends in first-grade is the unknown, but I’m confident we’ll see Strange in the Raiders No.6 jumper at different stages of the 2024 NRL regular season.
Is Stewart – or any of them, for that matter – ready for the week-to-week grind of the NRL?
Still just 18 years old, the Hype Train has left the station nice and early for young Chevy Stewart.
He did some good things in 18 NSW Cup games last year but handling the physicality of regular first-grade is another big step up from there.
It’s obvious why Canberra are so keen to get him into the NRL though:
It’s been a while since the Raiders really threatened with a genuine pass option like this at fullback.
We’ll quickly learn how consistently Stewart can execute that pass at NRL level, but it’s a new element to what has recently been a very unorthodox Raiders attack; playing from anywhere on the field, promoting the ball from coast-to-coast, generating second-phase play, etc.
In season 2024 though, there’s a good chance we see an organising halfback (Fogarty), a running five-eighth (Strange) and a ballplaying fullback (Stewart) combine for Canberra at some point in the NRL. How (or if) this changes the Raiders approach in attack is a trend I’ll be tracking.
There’s no doubt we’ll see a different Canberra Raiders outfit in Round 27 to the one that kicks off the 2024 NRL regular season.
Multiple rookies fighting for different positions make for interesting narratives and we’ll get a look at a few different combinations – particularly in the spine and outside backs – throughout the year.
With all this in mind, footy fans – certainly Raiders fans – will remember a Ricky Stuart special from the 2022 NRL regular season:
“So many of you people want X-factor. We are still teaching young people how to play footy at an NRL standard.”
Ricky Stuart post-game, 2022
We’re back again for the 2024 edition and the message is the same; there is plenty of potential in this Raiders squad but we need to expect the growing pains that come with playing regular NRL for the first time.