{"id":953850,"date":"2026-11-05T19:14:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T19:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/953850\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T19:14:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T19:14:19","slug":"nrl-news-2026-canberra-raiders-coach-ricky-stuart-on-hudson-young-contract-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/953850\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart on Hudson Young contract drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raiders<\/a> coach Ricky Stuart<\/a> says the club \u201cbent over backwards\u201d in their efforts to re-sign Hudson Young<\/a> and claims the representative back-rower\u2019s interest in the PNG Chiefs<\/a> is purely money-driven.<\/p>\n

The veteran coach also admits he\u2019s taken Young\u2019s snubbing of Canberra \u201cpersonally\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Canberra gun Hudson Young.\u00a0Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Late last month, the Raiders sensationally pulled<\/a> what was the richest offer tabled to a player in the club\u2019s history \u2013 a four-year deal worth $1.1 million per season \u2013 having grown sick and tired of protracted negotiations.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Young touched down in Port Moresby for a tour of the Chiefs\u2019 facilities<\/a>, ahead of the expansion club\u2019s entry into the NRL<\/a> in 2028.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs are offering the off-contract NSW Blues<\/a> gun $900,000 a season. Crucially, the dollars are tax-free.<\/p>\n

Stuart was asked about the icy situation on ABC radio on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have offered Hudson any more,\u201d Stuart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, we bent over backwards to try and keep Hudson and it would have been unfair on the club if we had went any further.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were at a stage where it was probably too much, yet we look after our players and we do everything we possibly can for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuart acknowledged that Young was well within his rights to explore his free-agency options, but suggested the boom edge forward was solely driven by the tax-free dollars and lucrative third-party deals at the Chiefs\u2019 disposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely it is (all about money),\u201d Stuart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t bother me one bit. If Hudson wants to make that decision and take those tax-free dollars, you\u2019ve got to understand he\u2019s got to live in Papua New Guinea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young is recovering from an Achilles rupture<\/a> that ended his season in July.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old is contracted to Canberra until the end of 2027, but there\u2019s no certainty he will see out the deal given the ugly situation at hand.<\/p>\n

Young has played 155 NRL games in green since making his first-grade debut for Canberra in 2019.<\/p>\n

He has only ever been coached by Stuart in the NRL and has become a State of Origin<\/a> and Test representative under the club icon\u2019s tutelage.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hudson Young touches down in Port Moresby.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

“I do take it personally, and I take it very personally about coaching this team, this club,” Stuart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do find it difficult at times, but you\u2019ve got to lose the emotion and see the business side of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not disgruntled with the fact that Hudson\u2019s looking elsewhere; that\u2019s his choice and decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what my club\u2019s done is give him probably the highest offer that\u2019s ever been offered to a player at this club in its time. It was a very, very generous offer, probably too big of an offer, but we did it (and) now he\u2019s knocked it back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’ve got to move forward. We’ve got to move on.”<\/p>\n

Although the Raiders are resigned to losing Young, they are in talks with off-contract Panthers back-rower Liam Martin<\/a>, who is NSW teammates with Young.<\/p>\n

\"Raiders<\/p>\n

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

As of November 1, a huge number of representative stars have been allowed to negotiate with rival clubs and pledge their allegiances elsewhere for 2028 and beyond.<\/p>\n

Stuart disagrees with the system.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately \u2026 with our rules and the regulations, the guidelines we have with our ability for players to go off and sign at another club 12 months in advance, it makes it very messy,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t agree with that interpretation or the guidelines we\u2019ve got in the competition. I think it makes it very messy and I feel very, very sorry for the fans, because you\u2019ve got some of your favourite players, players you want to watch, players you want to keep with your club in 12 months\u2019 time playing elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think it’s very unfair on the fans, but it is what it is.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raiders coach Ricky Stuart says the club \u201cbent over backwards\u201d in their efforts to re-sign Hudson Young and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":953851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-953850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/953851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}