Pressure builds at Roosters

Try as they might, the Sydney Roosters can’t escape the hype.

If they don’t win an NRL premiership in the next two years, it will widely be considered a failure.

Whether that’s fair or not, it’s the fact of the matter with the acquisition of Cooper Cronk and James Tedesco expected to instantly catapult them into premiership calculations.

You can’t add one of the finest playmakers of his generation and the incumbent NSW fullback to your side without there being an expectation of success.

Already punters have jumped on the Roosters bandwagon and they will enter the season as red-hot premiership favourites.

Good judges such as Andrew and Matthew Johns have warned against expecting too much too early from Trent Robinson’s new-look side.

But co-captain Boyd Cordner accepts that the pressure of expectation is something they’ll have to deal with.

“That’s all just outside noise at the moment. We can’t control that,” Cordner said when asked if it will be a failure should the next two seasons not yield a premiership.

“The only thing we can control is the way we turn up each week and play footy.

“That’s going to be there and keep happening but we try not to read into all that sort of stuff, focus solely on us and what we can control.”

After last year finishing second and falling one game short of the grand final, Roosters chairman Nick Politis has shuffled the deck chairs in the club’s pursuit of a 14th title.

Mitchell Pearce was controversially forced out by Cronk’s arrival, joining fellow exRoosters Connor Watson and Aidan Guerra at Newcastle.

Cordner however said Cronk’s influence have already had an impact at Bondi Junction.

“It’s Cooper Cronk so when he’s doing that, everyone else jumps on board and he lifts standards up,” Cordner said.