Lime Green Luke: Raiders feel out Brooks to partner Wighton in halves
Wests Tigers are shopping their halfback, Luke Brooks, and the Raiders are in the market. The club could do worse. And if not him who?
It feels longer in lockdown time but it was just over a month ago on July 21 when news broke that a Wests Tigers official had phoned Canberra Raiders with the flat-out amazing offer of a player swap: We will give you Luke Brooks and Moses Mbye; you give us Jack Wighton and Josh Hodgson.
Naturally Raiders officials just about tore hamstrings as they leapt from ergonomic chairs to roar: We got ‘em! Pack your bags, Josh and Jacki Boi! Holy Moses and Cool Hand Luke are comin to town.
On a planet other than this one.
On this one the suits at Raiders Nation replied to the Tigers official (I’m tipping the CEO who appeared in their self-serving and sweary documentary dressed like the lead singer from Noiseworks, Justin Pascoe): Thanks, champion. We’ll stick with the, you know, much better players.
There’d have been more to it. Money speaks many languages, including Northern English. Ultimately, though, Wighton and Hodgson remain high-functioning and well-oiled cogs of our busted-yet-doughty Green Machine’s late-season crack at the 2021 NRL finals series.
And yet… since the vexed departure of homesick George Williams, it seems – and with the greatest respect to noble steed, “clubman” and all-round good fellow Sam Williams – and assuming Matthew Frawley, 26, isn’t being groomed as the long-term pilot-come-quarterback - the Raiders need a top-line seven.
And in a market so skinny that the Cowboys signed - greatest respect, etcetera - Chad Townsend for $2.4 million, Luke Brooks would do.
Other options for the Canberra No.7 include:
Titans man Ash Taylor, off contract end of ‘21.
Melbourne Storm boy Cooper Johns, 22, off-contract end ‘21, too.
Mitchell Pearce, signed until end ’22 at Newcastle but, y’know, contracts, all that. Pearce got his club home by a point on Thursday night. He’s a ripper. But Mitchell Pearce? He’s 33 next year. He debuted for the Roosters in 2007;
Aiden Sezer could be seen as a regressive step but at 30 years old there’s sufficient sap left in him;
Jake Trueman is a 21-year-old from Castleford Tigers who has toured with Great Britain.
Yet The Milk understands, because The Milk has a mate called The Mole, that the Raiders have held “unofficial” talks with Brooks’ management given the Tigers have signed Jackson Hastings.
That the Tigers have lost Adam Doueihi with an ACL injury that could keep him out until next season - on top of losing Moses Mybe (Dragons) and Billy Walters (Broncos) - has led some to speculate that the club would now keep the halfback they’ve been shopping around.
Who knows? Maybe they’ll sign Mitchell Pearce.
Make of it what you will.
And make of this what you will: unless the Pommy kid Trueman is the New Nathan Cleary, Brooks looks the Raiders’ best option.
Consider:
He will turn 27 in December and is entering his prime;
He is a super-capable, experienced footy player who’s played 170 NRL games;
With one-on-one tutelage from the champion halfback just under Andrew Johns in the pantheon (that’s Ricky Stuart, by the way) he could flourish;
Leaving Wests Tigers has been a fine career move for Josh Addo-Carr, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Martin Taupau, Nathan Brown, Mitchell Moses and Canberra’s runaway bride James Tedesco, among perhaps 42 others.
Granted, Brooks never did become the New Joey Johns that was mooted (largely because he is a halfback with a barge-arse) in 2013. But then nobody ever has.
And you put Brooks alongside a dominant, game-breaking No.6 in Wighton and a couple of hookers with plenty of game in Hodgson and Tom Starling, and that’s a spine a halfback could complement rather than being forced to “own” as a “fall guy” as Brooks is at Wests Tigers, a club that would struggle to make the eight in a game of pool without bigs and smalls.
I like him. He looks the best we can do.
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