Canberra’s brilliant new half announces himself to NRL

Ethan Sanders waited patiently to inherit Canberra’s No.7 jersey, but he’s grabbed his moment to announce himself to the NRL in a hurry.

Two years after he left Parramatta to become the Raiders’ halfback heir-apparent, the 22-year-old made the starting job his own with a match-winning field goal to sink Manly at Brookvale Oval on Saturday night.

In a play that seemed to catch all involved off-guard, Sanders, in just his fifth NRL outing, had no qualms firing a 35-metre drop goal with the Raiders’ first set in golden point in an instinctive play that earned them the 29-28 win.

“We weren’t planning on doing it, but we ended up getting a quick play-the-ball and I just took it, I didn’t really think about it,” Sanders said.

“We were planning a kick to the corner then got a quick ruck, and it was a perfect opportunity.”

While Canberra won last year’s minor premiership, some have feared the loss of veteran halfback Jamal Fogarty – and the ascension of Sanders to the starting job – might see the side slide down the ladder.

Sanders got two NRL games in 2025 but was mainly forced to wait his turn and play NSW Cup.

Embracing the learning opportunity at a young age rather than becoming desperate to play first grade was key, he said.

“There’s a bunch of great leaders in this side … it was just good to sort of pick their brains and be around them, 24/7,” Sanders said.

“There’s a few of the boys in the team that I look up to, Jamal included last year.

“Just to be able to play with these boys and rub shoulders with them on the weekend is a dream come true. To be able to get the halfback role in round one is yet another tick on the goal list.”

Sanders paired with breakout star Ethan Strange, whose scintillating 2025 campaign saw him score 14 tries and win Dally M five-eighth of the year honours.

With Strange even younger at 21, the duo appear poised to run the Canberra side for years to come.

“Strangey is awesome … the best thing is he’s a good mate off the field too so it makes training a lot easier, having fun and trying to get better,” Sanders said.

Meanwhile, new Gold Coast coach Josh Hannay has warned it is inevitable there will be more pain for the Titans this NRL season after their 50-10 round-one thrashing from Cronulla.

The off-season arrival of prized Queensland assistant coach Hannay signalled new hope at underachieving Gold Coast, who re-signed key men Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, Cooper Bai, Jayden Campbell and Beau Fermor over the summer and won both their pre-season games.

But the Sharks brought the Titans careening back to earth on Saturday night and delivered Hannay a brutal reality check in his first game as a full-time NRL head coach.

Back-to-back preliminary finalists Cronulla scored in their first set with the ball and never looked back, beating their rivals physically and leaving the Titans to rue some poor fundamental errors.

Most notably, the Titans turned over possession when no player made it to dummy-half during a first-half attacking raid deep in Sharks territory.

“Physically, we were beaten to the punch,” Hannay said.

“When we were under pressure, some bad habits popped up.”

Hannay is the Titans’ fifth full-time head coach in the past 10 seasons and in that time the club has played finals just once, when they sneaked into eighth spot with a 10-14 record in 2021.

The Titans last finished a regular season with a winning record in 2010. Every other NRL team has posted one since then bar the Dolphins, who entered the competition in 2023.

No result against the Sharks could have discouraged Hannay on his mission to revitalise the long-time underachievers.

“Win or lose tonight, tonight wasn’t going to define us this year,” he said.

“I know this playing group are capable of better, but I’ve also said to them, there’s going to be pain.

“You don’t know when it’s going to present, but there’s going to be pain for us this year. We’re on a journey here.

“I don’t for one moment accept the performance or the result, it doesn’t sit well with me or the players at all, but the reality is, we’re going to have nights like tonight. Our response to nights like that is probably more important than anything.”

Hannay said the first step of that response would involve examining his first loss as Titans coach ahead of next weekend’s clash with the Dolphins.

“I’m not one to dwell so we won’t dwell on it but you also can’t ignore it,” he said.

“We’ll go through it, take out of it what we have to, and respond.”