ROOSTERS (STILL) THE TEAM TO BEAT
TAKE out Boyd Cordner, Cooper Cronk and Latrell Mitchell from last year’s Sydney Roosters grand final team and you’re missing a combined 642 NRL games.
That’s the Australian captain, as well as the game’s best playmaker and its most explosive game-breaking centre.
Plus you haven’t played since the first weekend of October and you’re up against a crack football team that has been in full Super League competition mode for a month.
Yet the Sydney Roosters still get the job done in St Helens to win a record fifth World Club Challenge final with a commanding 20-12 win.
Hardly stylish but with a stack of character and commitment.
As coach Trent Robinson explained about their defence in the sheds after the game: “You’ve got to have good principles. Then you’ve got to do it with heart. And you’ve got to love it and work hard for each other. At the start of the season when you haven’t played a game it’s got to hold up because your attack is rusty. It was a dogfight but we did it.”
Your columnist has been on tour with the Roosters for the past week. It is a truly great football club and the benchmark in the game.
They’ve had no curfews or booze bans. It’s all about the culture of a team rather than individuals, professionalism and hard work.
A club where backroom staff are treated the same as James Tedesco.
The Roosters’ performance against St Helens shows why they are favourites to become the first team since the Parramatta Eels in 1983 to win three straight titles.
There’s a long way to go but they are definitely the team to beat.
Luke Keary got ‘man of the match’ and deserved it. In Cordner’s absence, Jake Friend led magnificently and made 49 tackles.
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Siosiua Taukeiho again showed why they are regarded as the world’s best front-row bookends.
Lindsay Collins, meanwhile, played in the middle off the bench and added enormous strike power. “He’ll play Origin for Queensland within two years,” declared Roosters boss Nick Politis.
Importantly, the Roosters will arrive home tomorrow with no injuries to prepare for round one against the Penrith Panthers on March 14.