Ricky Turns 500
Exploring the ever complex relationship between Ricky Stuart and Raiders fans.
At the start of the 2024 NRL Season, I decided that I was going to make a milestone graphic for every Raiders (or Raiders adjacent) player or coach throughout the year. It was something that I did whilst doing some short-term work for the club throughout the 2020 season and I’ve always loved that it gives me a chance to do some reflection on that players career to date and what they’ve meant to me.
When Ricky Stuart’s big milestone for the 2024 season rolled around, it felt like it needed something a little bit more than what I’d been doing so far. While there was an interesting enough challenge in trying to find multiple photos of Ricky smiling, I felt that I had more to say about the great man than just a graphic. I’d been on the fence about starting a Substack for quite a few months, umming and arghing about what I wanted it to look like, but sometimes you just need to start. So why not start with a brain dump about the man who’s had a complete stranglehold on my daily moods for the last decade?
My relationship with Ricky Stuart, like many others, is incredibly complex. One might say it’s the most love/hate relationship in existence between two people who don’t actually know each other. There’s been plenty of days where I’ve been willing to kill and die for Ricky, and many others where I’ve considered driving 13 hours down to Canberra just so I can tell him to get stuffed. When talking footy with my mates, I’ve probably called him every name under the sun at various points in the last decade, but at the same time whenever anyone outside of Canberra criticises him, I defend him as if he’s my own family.
The reason this relationship is so toxic is because what makes Ricky so loveable and respected, are often times the same traits that make him so infuriating. He’s fiercely passionate, recklessly emotional in his decision making and both stubborn and loyal to a fault. When Ricky is good, he’s absolutely great. He makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when he speaks and has you ready to run through a wall at his command. But when he’s bad, there are few more maddening people on planet Earth.
Just last year he rested Jarrod Croker from a regular season game so that he could play his 300th match in Canberra and then proceeded to give a lecture to journalists on man-management and textbooks when questioned about it. 325 men have coached a game of first grade rugby league since 1908 and I don’t think a single one could’ve handled this situation quite as uniquely as Ricky Stuart.
What is undeniable though, is the improvement that Ricky has made to the Raiders both on and off the field in his decade plus at the club. When he walked through the doors of Raiders HQ in November 2013, the club was coming off a season in which they’d sacked Origin stars Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson, lost their last six matches of the season by a combined 150 points, lost a home game 68-4 and had their most talented junior in years (Anthony Milford) commit to the Broncos for 2015. The club hadn’t been to the finals in back to back seasons since 2004, hadn’t made it past the second week of the finals since Ricky himself was the halfback and only rated a mention in the mainstream media when a high-profile player was being sacked. As an optimistic sixteen year old, I probably thought we were a good signing away from winning the competition, but in reality, it was about as undesirable a head coaching vacancy as they come. Yet Ricky, who was having a tough time of things himself in Parramatta throughout 2013, embraced the challenge with open arms. It was a reunion straight out of a Hollywood writers room - the A-List star who’d lost his way as a coach, returning to the club he’d delivered three premierships to as a player, at a time when they needed him most.
While 2014 was far more hell than heaven for the club, Ricky found some diamonds in the back half of the season that would set the club up for long-term success. He gave Jordan Rapana his club debut, shifted Jack Wighton to fullback and most notably, gave 24 year old centre Jarrod Croker the club captaincy. He also took on the public humiliation of rejection from the likes James Tedesco, Josh Mansour, Kevin Proctor and Michael Ennis, just to turn around and nab Josh Hodgson and Sia Soliola who became two of the most important signings in club history. By just his third season at the club, he’d taken the basket case he walked into to their best regular season finish since 1995 and their first preliminary final since 1997. With a young, exhilarating squad, The Raiders seemed destined to sit entrenched inside the top four for years to come. However when it comes to the Raiders, things are never easy and with Ricky in charge, it’s rare that things go the way you expect.
Over the next two seasons, with largely the same squad they went within a whisker of winning the competition with, the Raiders missed the finals. At 0-4 to start the 2018 season, I wanted Stick gone. How many coaches in the NRL are afforded two seperate rebuilds within four years without a premiership? The attacking juggernaut that had been built in 2015/16 still existed somewhere but the fire inside the squad had burnt out. The players looked miserable, when games got tight they folded and the writing appeared on the wall for Ricky. Yet the Raiders backed their man and within 18 months, Ricky and the Raiders were playing in their first Grand Final in 25 years. As I said, with Ricky in charge things rarely go the way you expect.
The club didn’t break their long premiership drought that night but they did remind the Canberra faithful of what it’s like to dream. The once powerhouse club that had slept walked through 20 years of mediocrity was finally back in the premiership mix and for the first time in my lifetime looked like a genuine heavyweight. While the 2020 season was marred by a crippling injury crisis and strange COVID circumstances, the Raiders still returned to the preliminary finals with an undermanned squad, leaving the door open for another premiership run upon Josh Hodgson’s return in 2021.
Instead, and excuse me sounding like a broken record, it didn’t go the way everyone expected. The Raiders won just 12 of their next 32 games, missed the finals in 2021 and slumped to 2-6 to start 2022. The core of 2019 had disbanded and fallen apart, key Englishmen had returned home and players wives were (rightfully) picking apart Ricky’s bench rotation on Instagram. It was so dire that I once again thought it was time for Ricky to go. How many coaches get THREE rebuilds at the same club without winning a premiership? Well Ricky Stuart does and this time he managed to rebuild on the fly. Ahead of his 500th game today, Ricky has made the finals in four of the last five seasons, while maintaining just seven of the seventeen players from the 2019 Grand Final side and none of the spine. For two straight seasons, the Raiders have been almost unanimously predicted to make the bottom four and Ricky has guided them to the finals.
In his eleven years at the club, Ricky has done everything in his physical being to deliver sustained success to Canberra. He’s reconnected the club and its players to the local community, established a great bond between the Old Boys of the club and the current generation and scrapped and fought for the Raiders to be taken seriously as a club with those at the NRL. He’s put himself on the line for a plethora of tough calls, plenty that were right and many that were wrong, but he’s worn the brunt of them all and never shied away from being the face of the club’s decisions. He’s loved some players like sons and been reduced to tears when they leave. He’s walked out of press conferences, crossed lines, paid fines and kicked too many chairs across the sideline to count. To many, he has become Canberra.
“I’m looking after my players. I’m looking after my team. I’m looking after my club. And I’m trying to win every week. I am passionate about the result. I am passionate about the club. It’s the coaches and the guys who are involved at the coalface. For everyone else, it may be theatre and fun, but it’s not theatre for us at the coalface. I’m passionate and honest.” - Ricky Stuart, 2024.
When he speaks about his players, the club and the city itself, he regularly gives me goosebumps. When praising a player he will often refer to them as a “good Raider” rather than a “good player”, as if what it takes to be a good Raiders player is something completely unique and different to the traditional traits of a good rugby league player. The best part is, he’s not doing it to be dramatic, he just truly believes that is the case.
When recently asked about the struggle of recruiting players to Canberra, Ricky said “the type of player who doesn’t want to come here, that’s fine by me. If they can’t handle the cold, I don’t want them at the Raiders. I say to every player, you look after the Canberra jumper and the club will look after you. Our boys will always have respect and passion for the jumper.” It may not seem like much on the surface, but the way he’s stood up to rival players, commentators and fans disrespecting the region and the club has made it special to be a Raider again.
So that’s where Ricky’s Raiders sit ahead of his 500th game as an NRL coach. Tough, rugged, underestimated and in a way, completely reflective in their play style of Ricky’s personality. I don’t think Ricky would succeed coaching at any other club anymore and to be honest, I don’t think he’d want to. The only thing left for him to do in the game is deliver a premiership to the club he loves and I genuinely believe/worry he will die trying. I don’t know how long he has left as a coach, but I do know that it’s however long he wants it to be in Canberra. He will never be sacked by Canberra and if he does move on, it will be on his own terms and likely in a different position at the club. With that said, the way he’s speaking this year suggest he’s got as much fire in the belly as he’s ever had. With the youngest team he’s coached and raw talent coming out of their ears, I can’t wait to see what he does with this group over the next few years (it won’t go anything like I expect). Good luck at the coalface Stick.
You've outdone yourself here mate, quality work as usual 🤝💚🥛
I love (hate) you so much Ricky #98