Raiders 'couldn't have offered any more' to want-away Hudson Young

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The Canberra Raiders withdrew its $1.1 million per year offer to Hudson Young as the Blues forward said he wanted to pursue an opportunity with PNG.

Coach Ricky Stuart said Young had been given the "highest offer that's ever been offered to a player" at the club.

Stuart said any decision on whether Young would play at a different club in 2027 was up to the player's management.

Ricky Stuart says the Canberra Raiders "bent over backwards" to keep Hudson Young at the club, as the star back-rower touched down in Port Moresby ahead of a potential move the the PNG Chiefs.

Canberra stunningly pulled their $4.4 million, four-year offer to the Blues star on Monday.

Young travelled to Papua New Guinea this week, with the 2028 expansion club having already offered the six-time Kangaroo international $900,000 per year.

That tax-free package would have meant he would take home far more in his pay packet than the Raiders' offer, but the NRL established Young's market value at $1.1 million, which has since been revised to $1 million.

ARLC chairman Peter V'landys told Nine Newspapers that players can seek to challenge their "official" market value and make their own submissions to the salary cap auditor.

"Let's say a player wanted to be with his family or there are other specific reasons," V'landys said.

"We just don't want the salary cap rorted. However, we know that at times there are exceptional circumstances, so we take those exceptional circumstances into account.

"We won't have a situation where people manipulate the salary cap.

"The unfortunate thing is with the tax-free status of PNG, we have to be extra cautious with the market value of the players there."

The Raiders' $1.1 million per season offer was understood to be the biggest in the club's history, with Stuart saying the club could go no higher.

"We couldn't have offered Hudson any more," Stuart told 666 ABC Radio Canberra.

"I 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.

"We 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.

"But it gets to a stage where you've got to make a decision [and] my position and [Raiders CEO] Don Furner's position is we have to look after the club."

The 28-year-old made his NRL debut with the Raiders in 2019 and has played 155 NRL games for the Green Machine.

Stuart acknowledged that Young was well within his rights to seek out new opportunities, and that all the clubs agreed with the expansion to PNG and the challenges that would hold for the rest of the competition.

However, the veteran coach was under no illusions why Young was looking for pastures new.

"That doesn't bother me one bit. If Hudson wants to make that decision and take those tax-free dollars, you've got to understand he's got to live in Papua New Guinea."

It was put to Stuart that Young, who is currently recovering from an Achilles rupture that he suffered against South Sydney in July, may well look for a release from his contract for the 2027 season, with the Chiefs not coming in until 2028.

Stuart said any decision on that would be up to the player's management, but bemoaned the "messy" process that allowed players to sign a year in advance for a new club.

"Unfortunately … 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.

"I don't agree with that interpretation or the guidelines we've got in the competition. I think it makes it very messy and I feel very, very sorry for the fans, because you got some of your favourite players, players you want to watch, players you want to keep with your club in 12 months' time playing elsewhere.

"I think it's very unfair on the fans, but it is what it is."

Stuart, despite acknowledging that players moving on was just business, said he did take it "personally" when players move on.

"I do take it personally, and I take it very personally about coaching this team, this club," Stuart said.

"I do find it difficult at times, but you got to lose the emotion and see the business side of it.

"I'm not disgruntled with the fact that Hudson's looking elsewhere, that's his choice and decision.

"But what my club's done is give him probably the highest offer that's 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's knocked it back.

"We've got to move forward. We've got to move on."