When NRL stars James Tedesco, Kevin Proctor and Josh Mansour snubbed Canberra in the same week in 2014, first-year Raiders coach Ricky Stuart knew he had to think outside the square to pull together the kind of squad he wanted.
So the club legend thought back to his playing days and the ingredients that helped to make the Green Machine three-time premiers between 1989 and 1994.
One thing that stood out was that a number of players weren’t from Sydney.
This year the Raiders have been praised for the success of their four-man English contingent after they revitalised the club and helped moved them to within one win of the grand final.
But chief executive Don Furner said while the British influx had been a huge success in 2019, the practise first happened in Canberra more than 30 years ago.
“In the early days we had to look somewhere else to get players and lot of Queenslanders liked coming here, they didn’t want to go to Sydney because of the hustle and bustle and the cost of living,” Furner told AAP.
“People forget from ’82 to ’88 the Broncos didn’t exist so we were lucky with Steve Jackson and the Walters brothers and Mal (Meninga) and Gary Coyne.
“We also went to New Zealand and got (John) Lomax, (Quentin) Pongia and (Ruben) Wiki and we were successful over there.
“Then the Warriors came in and the (North Queensland) Cowboys as well so all those areas became harder to recruit from.”
Furner admits the 2014 non-signings stung, particularly Tedesco who had agreed terms only to backflip on a deal. He is now considered the best player in the world.
But the Englishmen started arriving the following year with now club captain Josh Hodgson.
He was followed by no-nonsense forwards Elliott Whitehead (2016), John Bateman (2019) and Ryan Sutton (2019), with halfback George Williams signing on for 2020.
“Those (non-signings) were pivotal moments. At the time the rules were you could renege and they did, certainly Tedesco was very disappointing at the time,” Furner said.
“Traditionally it’s hard to get players to move from Sydney … so we have been forced to look outside the square, Ricky knows how the club has operated and that has traditionally been our model.
“Ricky makes the call on players and he does thorough research on them and he backs his judgement.
“The English boys are all good blokes. Very tough, and they don’t necessarily miss the beach and that’s one of the things because the bulk of Australians live on the coast, so that’s usually a big issue.”
Hodgson is looking to guide Canberra to their first grand final in 25 years when they host South Sydney in the club’s biggest home game in history on Friday.
They wouldn’t be there without the Englishmen and Hodgson said it wasn’t a fluke his countrymen have flourished in the capital.
“The boys that have come here have been the right type of blokes. It’s not just been a lucky dip. Sticky really looked into and researched the type of players he thinks would go well here,” Hodgson said.
“He’s a smart coach who has been around a long time. You’re not around as long as Stick if you don’t know what you’re doing.
“It’s a good path we’ve gone down and the more boys we have here helps the (new ones) settle. It’s worked out nicely.”
Bateman, 25, has been one of the NRL’s standout players in 2019 and said he’s driven to succeed by his daughter Millie back home.
“We’re coming out here and leaving our families so we’re sacrificing a lot. You want to make sure you make a go of it because if you don’t you’ve left a lot behind for nothing,” Bateman said.
“You want to play well and make your family proud.
“When I met Ricky he was telling me how much he thought the team could achieve and he was just a genuine bloke. You can have good laugh with him but once you get to the business, you know it’s time to work.
“It’s now about us delivering on our promise to him.”