How Canberra’s star English imports arrived in nation’s capital
After missing out on James Tedesco and Kevin Proctor, Ricky Stuart had to find a new way to get star players to commit. To do this, he used a truckstop and a few greasy burgers on the side of the Hume Highway.
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The burly truckie, who’d just pulled his 18-wheeler in, only had eyes for the chalkboard menu.
Two bikers sat down at a table so that the front window of Truck Stop 31 was all that separated them from their two-wheel Triumph’s outside.
Behind them, two Englishmen and two Australians sat wiping hamburger grease from their lips.
“I didn’t want anyone to see us, or know where we were meeting, so we chose a petrol station at Marulan,’’ Canberra coach Ricky Stuart told The Sunday Telegraph.
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To most, the arrival and code-changing impact on the Raiders franchise of four hard-nosed Englishmen is a journey which consists of hope, chance and the gamble of uprooting four footballers from the north of England 17,000km away to Australia.
But Stuart isn’t interested in sitting on a plastic chair inside the Hume Highway petrol station at Marulan, 122km north of Canberra, on a Tuesday afternoon in February, 2018, to waste time on recruiting by chance, or luck.
The wily old halfback has pulled into the highway roadhouse with a strategy the Raiders’ halcyon days were built upon.
It’s a necessary recruitment tactic, sparked by rejection four years earlier.
Next to Stuart is one of rugby league’s most respected recruitment managers, Canberra scout Peter Mullholland.
Opposite them is English international John Bateman and his 23-year-old Wigan teammate, prop Ryan Sutton.
Inside the truck stop with sticky floors and better coffee than you’d think, Bateman and Sutton met the Raiders coach for the first time.
The duo had a flown to Australia with Wigan, as part of an historic-first UK Super League match against Hull, played at Wollongong’s WIN Stadium.
Now they were nowhere near anything at all.
“The two of them came to meet us at the petrol station on a day off by themselves,’’ Mullholland said.
“I had been in weekly contact with Ryan for a while and so we’d formed trust. He was always coming to Australia to test himself, but Bateman was a different story.
“He had his family ties at home and he was very well respected across both the English and Australian competitions.
“Meeting Ricky at that truck stop was the turning point for Bateman. Ricky was genuine in telling John how much he thought of him and how much he wanted him at the Raiders.
“When Ricky likes a player, he knows everything about their game.’’
Over the course of an hour-and-a-half, truckers and tourists came and went, oblivious to the four men eating hamburgers while thrashing out a plan that would lead Sutton and Bateman to the Green Machine in 2019.
As they walked out of the meeting Stuart gave Mullholand a message.
“Don’t you even think about losing those two,’’ Stuart told him. “Get them both.’’
For Stuart, Sutton and Bateman represented phase three of a UK recruitment mission that he and the Raiders management had identified out of necessity four years earlier.
The recruitment style included drawing upon their proud history.
It all began when former Wests Tigers and current Roosters fullback James Tedesco reneged on a three-year, $1.8 million contract to join Canberra in May, 2014.
Then seven days later, former Storm and current Gold Coast forward Kevin Proctor knocked back a $2.1 million contract over three years, despite Stuart flying to Melbourne to sign him.
In between, Penrith’s Josh Mansour also declined a rich offer after touring the Raiders facilities, choosing to re-sign with the Panthers.
And then finally, in late-June of that year, Canterbury’s Michael Ennis chose Cronulla over the Raiders to finish his career.
“When I had two blokes shake my hand in Proctor and Tedesco, to then turn around and then renege on my handshake, one, I lost respect for the player and two, I thought to myself, I’ve got to have another tact here,’’ Stuart said.
“What really started the whole success of the Canberra club was, with our local and developed players like Bradley Clyde, Chris O’Sullivan, Ashley Gilbert came our Queenslanders Mal Meninga, Sam Backo, Gary Belcher and the Walters boys.
“It was that mix of local boys with the Kiwis and Queenslanders.
LISTEN! Matty Johns is back with his latest podcast and with Paul Kent and James Hooper runs the rule over struggling team, takes a look at what makes a great halfback and has his say on the modern coaching problem. Plenty of laughs to be had as well.
“We had Kiwis like Quentin Pongia, John Lomax, Rubén Wiki and Brent Todd, who was the leader when he first came here.
“And so we decided to draw on that by carefully identifying players in England that we could mix with our local boys.’’
Raiders co-captain Josh Hodgson was the first to receive a call.
In need of a hooker for the 2015 season following the retirement of Glenn Buttriss, Stuart had watched hours of video from his loungeroom of the No.9 from Hull Kingston Rovers.
“I do a lot of recruiting at night and on the phone with the English player agents and for Josh it was about an opportunity,’’ Stuart said.
An opportunity which could’ve been quashed just days after Hodgson had agreed to a two-year deal with the Raiders in November 2014.
The crafty hooker made headlines for his door-crashing antics during a party at a student flat in Dunedin while on tour with England, causing an unwanted ripple-effect at the Raiders.
“I text him as soon as I heard and said ‘Hey ‘Superman’, call me,’’ Stuart smiled.
“Josh replied, apologising profusely saying; ‘I’m so sorry, I’m not like that. That’s out of character.’
“To his credit, Josh stuck to his word and started that 2015 pre-season before the date I had told him to begin. He wanted to make sure we knew that wasn’t his character from day one.
“What the NRL has done has helped Josh realise the better player that he could be.
“What he’s done in the four years here, is nothing sort of amazing.
“He’s one of the top two hookers in the game with Cameron Smith and Cameron is probably going to be the greatest hooker that has ever played the game.
“For him to compete with Cameron Smith says a lot about Josh.’’
Stuart said the recruitment in April 2015 of Elliott Whitehead, who had already established himself as a tremendously tough and clever footballer in the UK, was a no-brainer.
“Elliott had class all over him, alot of NRL clubs would love to have Elliott in their team now,’’ Stuart said.
“If you asked me the three things I want in a rugby league player. I want him to be a good bloke, he’s got to want to win everything and he’s got to be tough.
“Because that’s what it takes. And in all four, I see those traits.
“I’ve been very fortunate that I coached Adrian Morley (former English International forward at the Sydney Roosters).
“These four guys have what Adrian Morley had. That desire to win and a feeling of being part of something.
“That’s the great thing about Canberra, which all those Kiwis and Queenslanders felt and now our current crop of Pommy’s are so fortunate to understand, you don’t have to be born here to feel belonged.
“What these four boys are now, is a part of the Canberra Raiders history.’’
Originally published as How Canberra’s star English imports arrived in nation’s capital
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