I think the Raiders need to take a leaf out of Souths book in terms of their recruitment policies, as much as we're all sick of hearing about Souths (from souths) they do a good job of selling their brand. A good salesman can sell dog sh*t and make the customer wonder how they ever lived without it.
Only a few years ago Souths was thought of the way Canberra is thought of now, a sh*t place to live, a sh*t team to play for and a red line through your rep career, they signed the busted has been players who were looking for a last contract then a retirement.
Look at what theyve attracted since then, Wing, Asotasi, Vagana, Peachey, Kidwell, Widders etc... not to mention the players theyve retained in that time. They also havnt really lost many players they wanted to keep. How have they managed to change the mental image that players had of souths as a possible career move?? They sell themselves well. Redfern is still a sh*thole, nothing changed there, the club is still unsuccessfull, no change there either.
But the difference now is that they have a tight bond with each other, a manufactured belief that they have the ability to become a great team again. They also recruited smart, notice the ammount of Kiwis/Islanders souths recruited? theses players are the type that play for pride and for each other, they have a very tight knit group now at souths and its largly bought.
For me i think it starts with a respected Coach that players want to play for, i realise Don Furner is a well respected person in Canberra but i think they really needed to recruit outside of that "boys club" and go for someone like Lang, Murray, Folkes, Anderson to head their team, after that they really need to buy not just one marquee player and hope that will be enough, good players attract other good players. Potential buys want to know that when they pack their bags and head to canberra, there will be severall other good players joining too.
But to get this all happening they need to really sell the idea of "brotherhood" and "mateship" to their targets, create some excitement about it, make them believe they will really be missing out if they pass up this opportunity to be part of something big, like Souths did.
The way it looks now is that there are so few marquee players there, they can pretty much ask for what they want and get it, management should be getting to the point where theyre in a position to say "no, you want to stay at this club surrounded by all these great players, you need to sign for less"
The way Canberra seems to be now is just unattractive, they come accross like youre doing them a favour by signing for them, they need to stop throwing lifelines to the bad boys from other clubs too.
