Corey Horsburgh commits his future to Canberra Raiders

[LimeGreenMachine]

Hopefully a bit of an exaggeration. Hopefully someone at the club was speaking to him , find it hard that no-one , like the welfare side of the club didn't.
Also didn't Taps have a similar story regarding not talking for a period.

[Billy Walker]

Maybe Kenny Rogers is the go-between for half time messages….

“Ricky says he would like you to take more carries and put the offload away”

“Tell Ricky he can get stuffed - I’ll offload if I want to”

[dubby]

This is not uncommon across the game, unfortunately.

[Dr Zaius]

Two giant manchild's

[Seiffert82]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has re-signed a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

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[Roger Kenworthy]

Way too much maitenance.

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Absolutely

Ridiculous. Too good a talent to lose.

Soon to be 27 and he has never put two good seasons back to back. Talent eventually has to translate to results.

No parties look good here. I'll be amazed it this doesn't blow up again before the end of 2026.

[The Nickman]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has resigned a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

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Haha.

[Billy Walker]

Way too much maitenance.

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Absolutely

Ridiculous. Too good a talent to lose.

Soon to be 27 and he has never put two good seasons back to back. Talent eventually has to translate to results.

No parties look good here. I'll be amazed it this doesn't blow up again before the end of 2026.

It will blow up again for sure.

[Finchy]

I thought it was bad a few years ago when Hors said he and Stick didn’t speak for a month. Now a whole year of no speaking? Juveniles, both of them. Act like men and sort it out and move on. Grow up.

[Wiki Special]

I'd love to know what happened in the pre-season that had Stuart tell Hors he'd lost his starting spot. Because he was phenomenal in 2023.

[Raider Azz]

Way too much maitenance.

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Absolutely

Ridiculous. Too good a talent to lose.

Soon to be 27 and he has never put two good seasons back to back. Talent eventually has to translate to results.

People here said similar things about tapine at around the same age and now he's the best prop in the game. Horse has the ability reach similar heights.

[Finchy]

I'd love to know what happened in the pre-season that had Stuart tell Hors he'd lost his starting spot. Because he was phenomenal in 2023.

I don’t think it was anything too crazy - I’m sure Hors admitted he was physically and mentally underdone because he knew he wasn’t playing for the first few games due to his BS suspension from last year. His attitude and conditioning wasn’t where it needed to be. Which is poor from him.

[Botman]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has re-signed a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

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Well that's how the player apparently felt and he's now on record as saying the player and coach didnt speak for a year, and no one at the club was talking to him, to such an extent that he had to find outside council to talk through his issues and help get his career back on track.

So whatever actually happened, it's probably fair to say the communication from the HC to the player was at best, terribly ineffective. And at worst, non-existent.

Two key quotes in that article that strike me
"It made me realise that I was half the problem, that I need to change myself. I’m taking the right steps.”
"...we spoke about some things we both need to work on"

Sounds like Hors has learned a thing or two through this ordeal, and perhaps the coach has as well. I know Stuart has been at this game a long time and probably feels like he's got it all sorted, but you're never too old to learn and get better, especaially when it comes to management of personalities.

[Seiffert82]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has resigned a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

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Haha.

Nicko, I know you don't rate Stuart but there's not a single chance he randomly walked up to Horsburgh during the offseason, told him he wasn't needed in First Grade and then simply refused to talk to the bloke for 6 months.

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[Seiffert82]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has re-signed a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

Sent from my CPH2021 using Tapatalk

Well that's how the player apparently felt and he's now on record as saying the player and coach didnt speak for a year, and no one at the club was talking to him, to such an extent that he had to find outside council to talk through his issues and help get his career back on track.

So whatever actually happened, it's probably fair to say the communication from the HC to the player was at best, terribly ineffective. And at worst, non-existent.

Two key quotes in that article that strike me
"It made me realise that I was half the problem, that I need to change myself. I’m taking the right steps.”
"...we spoke about some things we both need to work on"

Sounds like Hors has learned a thing or two through this ordeal, and perhaps the coach has as well. I know Stuart has been at this game a long time and probably feels like he's got it all sorted, but you're never too old to learn and get better, especaially when it comes to management of personalities.

Yep, I know full well that Stuart has had blues with a number of players (or their wives) over the years. Hodgson, Papa, Sutton, G Willy, Tapine and Bateman spring to mind. All for slightly different reasons but essentially all regarding their commitment to the club or to their training habits. The vast majority of Stuart's players clearly love the **** out of him and would do anything for him.

Nobody actually knows what has gone on here, but Cory Horsburgh, God bless him, must be one of the most childish players I've ever seen at this club.

So yeah, maybe it's two big headed egos carrying on a bit too far, but at the end of the day one of those two guys has pushed the other to get to an SOO level of performance...despite Nickman himself writing Horsburgh off in his first few seasons.

I'm backing the coach on this one. Horsburgh has repeatedly needed to pull his head in over the years. His take on the situation is extremely hard for me to get behind.

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[gerg]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has re-signed a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

Sent from my CPH2021 using Tapatalk

Well that's how the player apparently felt and he's now on record as saying the player and coach didnt speak for a year, and no one at the club was talking to him, to such an extent that he had to find outside council to talk through his issues and help get his career back on track.

So whatever actually happened, it's probably fair to say the communication from the HC to the player was at best, terribly ineffective. And at worst, non-existent.

Two key quotes in that article that strike me
"It made me realise that I was half the problem, that I need to change myself. I’m taking the right steps.”
"...we spoke about some things we both need to work on"

Sounds like Hors has learned a thing or two through this ordeal, and perhaps the coach has as well. I know Stuart has been at this game a long time and probably feels like he's got it all sorted, but you're never too old to learn and get better, especaially when it comes to management of personalities.

Yep, I know full well that Stuart has had blues with a number of players (or their wives) over the years. Hodgson, Papa, Sutton, G Willy, Tapine and Bateman spring to mind. All for slightly different reasons but essentially all regarding their commitment to the club or to their training habits. The vast majority of Stuart's players clearly love the **** out of him and would do anything for him.

Nobody actually knows what has gone on here, but Cory Horsburgh, God bless him, must be one of the most childish players I've ever seen at this club.

So yeah, maybe it's two big headed egos carrying on a bit too far, but at the end of the day one of those two guys has pushed the other to get to an SOO level of performance...despite Nickman himself writing Horsburgh off in his first few seasons.

I'm backing the coach on this one. Horsburgh has repeatedly needed to pull his head in over the years. His take on the situation is extremely hard for me to get behind.

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So you give the coach credit for getting him up to SOO level in 2023, and absolve him of any responsibility for a diabolical 2024 season for Hors?

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[Seiffert82]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has re-signed a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

Sent from my CPH2021 using Tapatalk

Well that's how the player apparently felt and he's now on record as saying the player and coach didnt speak for a year, and no one at the club was talking to him, to such an extent that he had to find outside council to talk through his issues and help get his career back on track.

So whatever actually happened, it's probably fair to say the communication from the HC to the player was at best, terribly ineffective. And at worst, non-existent.

Two key quotes in that article that strike me
"It made me realise that I was half the problem, that I need to change myself. I’m taking the right steps.”
"...we spoke about some things we both need to work on"

Sounds like Hors has learned a thing or two through this ordeal, and perhaps the coach has as well. I know Stuart has been at this game a long time and probably feels like he's got it all sorted, but you're never too old to learn and get better, especaially when it comes to management of personalities.

Yep, I know full well that Stuart has had blues with a number of players (or their wives) over the years. Hodgson, Papa, Sutton, G Willy, Tapine and Bateman spring to mind. All for slightly different reasons but essentially all regarding their commitment to the club or to their training habits. The vast majority of Stuart's players clearly love the **** out of him and would do anything for him.

Nobody actually knows what has gone on here, but Cory Horsburgh, God bless him, must be one of the most childish players I've ever seen at this club.

So yeah, maybe it's two big headed egos carrying on a bit too far, but at the end of the day one of those two guys has pushed the other to get to an SOO level of performance...despite Nickman himself writing Horsburgh off in his first few seasons.

I'm backing the coach on this one. Horsburgh has repeatedly needed to pull his head in over the years. His take on the situation is extremely hard for me to get behind.

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So you give the coach credit for getting him up to SOO level in 2023, and absolve him of any responsibility for a diabolical 2024 season for Hors?

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Tracking the history of this case, the best football to come from Horsburgh is when he is committed to maintaining fitness and his off-field life is in order.

The coaching staff, like any club in the comp, are there to provide to a framework for the player to succeed. If every other rep level player can maintain a level of professionalism and performance, and one player doesn't, that indicates to me the issue is with the player, not the head coach.

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[T_R]

I'm just glad we have The World's Greatest Man Manager to keep our players on track.

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[Botman]

To think this was ENTIRELY on Hors and Stuart bares ZERO responsibility for him and a player not speaking for a year.... staggering. Does not match with the facts of this as they have been reported, the coach's history on this front or common sense '
And if you cant even concede the HC has to hold some accountability this year long break down in communication, then any further discussion is pointless.

I agree with posters above, this relationship has not experienced its last bump in the road, and if Hors is going to be here long term and play his best footy, we'll need both player and coach to have learned some lessons from this and improve on the things they feel short on.

[Hong Kong Raider]

Ricky knows leadership as he proudly stated in the press conference last year.

That's why a majority of NRL players rate him so highly in all the polls, and many NRL players want to come here and play for him.

[Finchy]

Tracking the history of this case, the best football to come from Horsburgh is when he is committed to maintaining fitness and his off-field life is in order.

The coaching staff, like any club in the comp, are there to provide to a framework for the player to succeed. If every other rep level player can maintain a level of professionalism and performance, and one player doesn't, that indicates to me the issue is with the player, not the head coach.

Look, Hors having a diabolical 2024 is mostly his own fault. You’re correct in that if every other player can maintain the required level of mental and physical fitness and conditioning to play their best footy and Hors is the only one who didn’t, he is the issue.

The problem then lies in how the coach dealt with that. Dropping him to reserves? No issue there. He’s done it to Papa, Hudson, Kris, Austin, Guler, Cotric, Croker for various reasons over the years including fitness, form, attitude.

The issue then is not talking to him for a year or trying to get to the bottom of why he self-sabotaged his season. Dig down into what was happening with his life off the field that was causing him to have poor emotional control and a poor attitude to training and performance, so it can be rectified (ie: get him some professional help).

I don’t think Wayne Bennett would treat Latrell Mitchell in the same way, he is a good enough man manager to find out what makes him tick and get the best out of him despite his known attitude and fitness issues.

Ricky surely has to bear some responsibility in not attempting to resolve Hors’s issues much earlier in the season.

[Billy Walker]

Haha, there's zero percent chance the coach has resigned a player for 3 seasons, on rep level money, and then arbitrarily told him he's been cut from the starting lineup with zero explanation as to why.

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Haha.

Nicko, I know you don't rate Stuart but there's not a single chance he randomly walked up to Horsburgh during the offseason, told him he wasn't needed in First Grade and then simply refused to talk to the bloke for 6 months.

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So Seiff - if you are correct, and none of this happened the was Hors has detailed it in the media, I would say one of two things are going on. Either Stick and Hors are having a laugh and have agreed to spin a good yarn or Hors is telling fibs to make Ricky look bad.

So if it didn’t happen, why do you think Hors is saying it did?

[Riaan]

What do people think of Hor’s chances of being re-signed with us? 10% ?, 0% ?

[Raiders_Pat]

What do people think of Hor’s chances of being re-signed with us? 10% ?, 0% ?

Lol the guy isn't on the open market for another two years... anything could happen between now and then.

[Seiffert82]

Tracking the history of this case, the best football to come from Horsburgh is when he is committed to maintaining fitness and his off-field life is in order.

The coaching staff, like any club in the comp, are there to provide to a framework for the player to succeed. If every other rep level player can maintain a level of professionalism and performance, and one player doesn't, that indicates to me the issue is with the player, not the head coach.

Look, Hors having a diabolical 2024 is mostly his own fault. You’re correct in that if every other player can maintain the required level of mental and physical fitness and conditioning to play their best footy and Hors is the only one who didn’t, he is the issue.

The problem then lies in how the coach dealt with that. Dropping him to reserves? No issue there. He’s done it to Papa, Hudson, Kris, Austin, Guler, Cotric, Croker for various reasons over the years including fitness, form, attitude.

The issue then is not talking to him for a year or trying to get to the bottom of why he self-sabotaged his season. Dig down into what was happening with his life off the field that was causing him to have poor emotional control and a poor attitude to training and performance, so it can be rectified (ie: get him some professional help).

I don’t think Wayne Bennett would treat Latrell Mitchell in the same way, he is a good enough man manager to find out what makes him tick and get the best out of him despite his known attitude and fitness issues.

Ricky surely has to bear some responsibility in not attempting to resolve Hors’s issues much earlier in the season.

As you say, plenty of players have been dropped and communication lines have remained open.

This has happened before with Horsburgh and Stuart. The player pulled his head in the first time and bounced back to play Origin. Now it's happened again. It's a bit of a boring theme.

I'm not sure if too many people here manage 30+ staff and a bunch of other crap that must go with being a first grade coach. I tell you what, it would get pretty boring pretty quickly if one single person took up 20 per cent of your energy to get them motivated for work each day.

So yeah, blame the coach, blame both of them. Doesn't matter. Nobody here actually knows what happened. The whole thing is selfish. I'd be amazed if the other players weren't completely sick of it.

Fact is, Horsburgh decided to stay. The relationship can't be that broken. The drama is all a bit bogus TBH.

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[Hong Kong Raider]

I find it amusing that despite Ricky complaining that we do not have that many SOO reps in our team, the difficulty in recruiting such SOO quality, and such quality is needed to win premierships (which we haven't done now for over 30 years and his only win was in 2002), that the situation with Horse was allowed to deteriorate the way it did.

In proper organisations not run by dictatorships and nepotism, such a scenario would not be allowed to happen: a supervisor / manager not talking to an employee which is his / her direct report.

[Riaan]

What do people think of Hor’s chances of being re-signed with us? 10% ?, 0% ?

Lol the guy isn't on the open market for another two years... anything could happen between now and then.

I just think if any of the Queensland teams were willing payout his contract he would have been gone. The fact the only interested party was the WT is pretty telling.

[Billy Walker]

What do people think of Hor’s chances of being re-signed with us? 10% ?, 0% ?

Lol the guy isn't on the open market for another two years... anything could happen between now and then.

I just think if any of the Queensland teams were willing payout his contract he would have been gone. The fact the only interested party was the WT is pretty telling.

Yep - it says plenty. Has talent but very high maintenance

[Bluesbrother]

I find it amusing that despite Ricky complaining that we do not have that many SOO reps in our team, the difficulty in recruiting such SOO quality, and such quality is needed to win premierships (which we haven't done now for over 30 years and his only win was in 2002), that the situation with Horse was allowed to deteriorate the way it did.

In proper organisations not run by dictatorships and nepotism, such a scenario would not be allowed to happen: a supervisor / manager not talking to an employee which is his / her direct report.

Yeah, you're right. They'd just sack him. Roosters, Terrell May - a perfect example.

[Roger Kenworthy]

Way too much maitenance.

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Absolutely

Ridiculous. Too good a talent to lose.

Soon to be 27 and he has never put two good seasons back to back. Talent eventually has to translate to results.

People here said similar things about tapine at around the same age and now he's the best prop in the game. Horse has the ability reach similar heights.

Good point - I was one of Tapine's critics for sure. Tapine was at least always making himself available for selection. That's my biggest gripe with CH - it has often been his lack of fitness and ill discipline (the two are pretty closely linked) that has limited his appearances for us.

[Neeeegz]

From the outside looking in,
As a people manager, I think you need to look at certain people's strengths and weaknesses with what you have available, I've had to shake crews up and move people to different positions, also sacked a few.
But you need to work to the strengths of what you have available, if someone is struggling with their personal life, I want them to tell me so I can manage it and get on top of it and help them.
If they keep EDIT so to speak then they will be sacked.
But you need to help the people under you, especially if they are good people and good at their job to help build a successful business.
Ricky seems to act like a dictator/spoilt brat.
And I know a lot goes on behind the scenes that no one hears about, but this story coming out has pretty much confirmed my opinion of Ricky Stuart.

Passionate yes
Poor loser yes
Compationate... no
Professional... not often
Embarrassing at times ...yes

If we aren't in the top 8 in 2026, then he needs to go. New coach for 2027 please.

[Hong Kong Raider]

I find it amusing that despite Ricky complaining that we do not have that many SOO reps in our team, the difficulty in recruiting such SOO quality, and such quality is needed to win premierships (which we haven't done now for over 30 years and his only win was in 2002), that the situation with Horse was allowed to deteriorate the way it did.

In proper organisations not run by dictatorships and nepotism, such a scenario would not be allowed to happen: a supervisor / manager not talking to an employee which is his / her direct report.

Yeah, you're right. They'd just sack him. Roosters, Terrell May - a perfect example.

We are talking here about a coach who refused to speak to a player for a year, not the fact that a club wants to release a player for whatever reason - whether that be May, Bateman, Hunt or Gutherson. I don't know why you are conflating the two.

I listened to an interview of Paul Pogba who was asked about Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Man Utd. He said Ole would not play some players due to their fitness and form, but he would still maintain a relationship with those players, whereas Mourinho would not speak to the player and make it personal. Which coach and style of leadership would the players prefer ?

In any event, I don't think we have the same resources as the Roosters to have a SOO level player to be playing NSW Cup for most of the year, let alone leave the club. Surely it's up to the coach to get the best out of their players.

Ricky cannot recruit any NRL level players, let alone SOO level players.

[Riaan]

The fact some on here are buying into the "I was just minding my own business and Rocky kicked me off the team and never spoke to me again'" spiel is pretty funny.
And it's pretty obvious that that he (allegedly) cracked the **** because Morgan Smithies took his spot and that after being told that he wouldn't be walking straight back into the side started to spiral with his weight and attitude (allegedly). Come on guys

[greeneyed]

Corey Horsburgh is taking a lot of responsibility for what has happened… now. Obviously, he didn’t during the season and that would contribute to communication break down. Equally, the coach is responsible for managing the playing staff. The report the coach was not speaking to the player for most of the season and that Horsburgh felt so isolated his player manager had to find an external therapist… if that’s a reasonable representation, that is very concerning.

[Billy Walker]

Why do people keep saying “if that’s true”? What is the alternative theory if it isn’t true - Hors is stirring up trouble trying to make Rick and the club look bad?