Rooster's Transition

[TumutChook]

I can see the long term benefits of what they’re trying to achieve. The hard part is getting through the next 5 years where not only are we not realistic premiership chance, but probably not even a finals chance. They may seem harsh but within the next 2 years we will have lost Teddy, Toops,plus with Rads & HIAs who knows where he will be. Will Walker also stick around until he’s late 20s with no hope of success?
The other side is that, well so far & that includes NSW cup, but I don’t actually see that much talent in the under 25 brigade. Sandon is a super league player & I 100% think he will not be in the club in 2 years time . Young needs to improve massively, same as Egan & Lenui, Billy Smith is a walking liability, Wong seems lost, Ava’s x 2 are both still 4/5 years away from regular, established players. Eventually we will get there but it may be a long 4-5 years in the making. I think we need another established forward, another established outside back & a FB as we’ve lost Manu & JS. Robson was a good pick up, but post too many established senior players in a short time. Not sure I can remember any club in any sporting code being successful with untried players, rookies & so many young players. We will need Teddy, Angus,Radley,Collins & Toops to be 100% every game to even get between 8-12 range this & next year.

[TumutChook]

As long as they can admit 'defeat' when needed with players they have invested in. Sorry if you read this Sandon Smith but fark me you are bog average at best

Yep said it from day 1,he’s Hastings/ Flanno /Nikorima 2.0.
I actually think Flanno & Hastings were better as at least they kicked goals.

[TumutChook]

I think the Billy Smith experiment is over, he's been part of the top 30 for 5 years now managing on average just 5 games a year, it sucks for him but he's young enough that he can head to Super League, prove himself and potentially come back to the Roosters or another NRL side.

We can't rely on Billy Smith hopefully coming good, we need to go into the market and pick up another world class back with youth on their side. Cobbo is the answer here.

Cobbo will go to the new PNG side, we are 0 chance of him coming.

[King Salvo]

As long as they can admit 'defeat' when needed with players they have invested in. Sorry if you read this Sandon Smith but fark me you are bog average at best

Not According to Andrew Johns who said Sandon had a real crack and Cooper Cronk who rates Sandon highly - mmm one thinks they might know a thing or two about playing in the halves - just as a guess on my part.

Struggling to remember a post were you actually rated any Roosters players ?

[MKCS]

Cobbo will go to the new PNG side, we are 0 chance of him coming.

Well, if we can't offer a competitive offer to the PNG side then what hope are we really?

[milanja]

Well, if we can't offer a competitive offer to the PNG side then what hope are we really?

There is talk that the payments for players playing in PNG will be close to tax free, to entice players to go there.

[roosterchook]

I think the Billy Smith experiment is over, he's been part of the top 30 for 5 years now managing on average just 5 games a year, it sucks for him but he's young enough that he can head to Super League, prove himself and potentially come back to the Roosters or another NRL side.

We can't rely on Billy Smith hopefully coming good, we need to go into the market and pick up another world class back with youth on their side. Cobbo is the answer here.

Agreed. The club has to be more realistic in holding down positions for players that are just never there for us. We get rid of players like May and Sitili but hang onto dead wood like Billy Smith. He should be very grateful and look elsewhere and not expect the club to keep him indefinitely on the sidelines.

[roosterchook]

It’s possible the club has taken a long hard look at the team and faced facts that many of the players have no chance to win a comp nor buying a couple of stars so have decided to build from scratch. May and Sitili might have made our team a bit stronger but we are after premierships so need to build a team which can beat the storms and penriths of the comp which we have dismally failed. Maybe they’ve come to the realisation that our great roster has not been that great so decided to take the long path to get a winning formula.

[Bansai Pipeline]

'Making the finals' every year for blah blah blah is one thing. But our record against Penrith and Melbourne is the only metric that matters. And on that one we're well and truly cooked.

[HDTONE]

It's great bringing young ones through.
But almost half a side in one hit ...seriously.

Yeah we got injuries but they knew which players were moving on and never planned for it....or never planned well enough.

So now we're left with half a side of rookies, some of them will be decent.

Now they scramble around desperate trying to sign anybody to patch up the team.

Doesn't look real professional imo

[ism22]

It's great bringing young ones through.
But almost half a side in one hit ...seriously.

Yeah we got injuries but they knew which players were moving on and never planned for it....or never planned well enough.

So now we're left with half a side of rookies, some of them will be decent.

Now they scramble around desperate trying to sign anybody to patch up the team.

Doesn't look real professional imo

To be fair I think Brisbane smashed us because Rads, Leniu, Butcher and Va'a were all unavailable. Va'a is now out for ~10 weeks (indefinitely pretty much?) and his younger brother's out too. I say Butcher and Va'a but ugh... both have brothers and both brothers are out!!!

It's a fricking bloodbath in terms of injuries and Leniu's suspension just makes it even worse. This week's not looking any better with Penrith (contrary to what pundits are saying, I don't think Brisbane were even that good!!!)

If we did sign somebody like Molo it would be as a bandaid solution to boost stocks. I can only repeat so many times that we haven't seen our youth have a proper crack yet because they're all hurt. As are the vets.

Different angle but at some point one's surely gotta ask what's wrong with our training? A lot of players are getting serious injuries...

[kakaruk]

PNG will struggle to sign players maybe single guys will go you wouldn’t take your wife and kids to Port Moresby it’s too dangerous there is always the possibility something bad will happen up there trust me i played up there in the old days even then there were a couple of riots over games people got killed over it Ashley Klein and co will have to be on their best behaviour lol

[Vasco]

Aye, its going to be a rough, rocky ride to start

Our luck has deserted us at the moment, we are playing the best sides in the world and that is with a third of our total squad unavailable.

With many front line forwards unavailable (Cheese, Nat and Egan Butcher, Spencer, Radley, DLS AND X Va'a) we have no choice but to blood the next best available.

Losing Walker in September hurt us last year. and will hurt us this year.

He is our Nathan Cleary, the player the Roosters are building the team around.

How different if luck was with us and everyone in the squad was available

This is a key factor in the current situation where are in. I'm sure they were planning on having Walker and Sandon as the long term halves.

Walker's long term injury has caused major problems. We are now stuck with a rookie and a veteran that is well past his use by date.

Add to that all of the injuries and suspensions along with playing tough sides early on, there's no wonder we will be down the bottom for most of the season.

["gaz"]

Well the comparison to Barcelona's system is interesting. The last time they won every trophy in Europe was 2015 where they had arguably the greatest player of all time at the peak of their powers and also had Suarez who they'd purchased for close to 100mil and Neymar who they'd purchased for close to 100mil.

Since then they've been inconsistent and suffered financial troubles and currently have 36 year old Lewandowski leading the line for them who is obviously not an academy player. Amongst the current side are plenty of bought products that are seemingly firing at the moment but have been inconsistent. Theyve really only produced 3 or 4 high quality academy players since their glory days of over a decade ago.

Perhaps Uncle Nick is going for the Barca approach of make recruitment errors whilst your rivals win multiple trophies In a row. Madrid have won 5 UCLs since Barca last won there's. Similarities to Penriff and us. They also sack their coaches at the drop of a hat, if Robbo's results had been translated into Barcelona he'd have biten the bullet 3 years ago.

Sorry to go King Salvo on you all but I'm a big football fan so I won't allow lazy comparative journalism go unnoticed.

Not sure if you have seen this video?
Nick, Aubs and Friend talk Barcelona and our Academy

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1400455380592858