Frustrated that we constantly watch a patched up team

[Nathan Aboud]

Look there is nothing wrong about the team we have, the real problem is that we give away possession so easily...

No other teams do that, not even the Dragons nor Titans. The past two seasons we have finished with an average of 60% to 65% possession and that is not up to first grade standards. The even bigger problem is that it is not our rookies or young players who are constantly making these errors it is our senior players. Players who should know better in game management as well, especially already have 2 or 3 premiership rings.

Once the back to back knock on's in the first half happened yesterday, I turned the game off as I knew we were done from there and preparing for the embarrassment as a supporter was coming my way. It sucked, but it has been the same story for the past two seasons as I thought they would have addressed the issue in the off season but once the Manly trail came around and saw the first half obviously all of us knew right there that we are in for a bad opening season.

We cannot afford to be dropping these opening round matches anymore as it has proven in the past 3 seasons that it is a struggle to get to the top 4 now. In my opinion, if we continue to leave players out of the site to give them extra time to heal where they may not need to then we will continue to get touched up & embarrassed by the lower sides (just like yesterday).

It was the first time ever I turned the game off as it was embarrassing last year to lose to the Knights in Round 1 and now it is even more embarrassing to lose to a new team in the NRL.

[Bansai Pipeline]

The collisions are too intense these days. You need to field a team full of under 25 year olds to deal with them. And even then...

[ism22]

Other clubs go through it too just like any work place. Not just the Roosters and not just in rugby league. That's life unfortunately and it's not always smooth sailing.

Agreed. IMO an unfortunate fact of footy is that it's a sport and getting the best outta players involves pushing them so hard that they can get injured.

As a dad who is semi-competitive with distance running, a large part of my training is not getting hurt. While training for general fitness and self-preservation works well for me, it's not the way to win a premiership in the NRL.

I dunno why we always start slow but we do and it's something Robbo's working on. Under roughly a decade of Robbo's coaching we've made the finals every year but one and won 3 premierships. Things could certainly be a lot worse!

[roosterproud]

looks like no lodge for a while. having an operation to fix his broken face. 6 weeks possibly

[Batemans Bay Rooster]

I think there’s a few parts to this.

1) No one is speaking about the World Cup but there will be significant impacts to the sides who contributed a lot of players to the World Cup in the opening month or two of the season, this means niggling injuries and rust. Most of these players didn’t return until mid-January. I remember coming off the 2013 World Cup where we had more players than any other NRL club and we went 2 wins, 4 losses in our first 6 games including a 28-8 loss to Souths in Round 1 before going on to win the minor-premiership. There should be no surprise that the Panthers who contributed the most World Cup players have gotten off to a slow start and look uninspiring in attack.

2) There is something to be said for all the head knocks that we get as a team, I haven’t seen any data on it but purely looking at who the players are that suffer from the head knocks it’s our most aggressive defenders. I’ve seen some criticism about lack of effort, not being mentally ready for the game etc. but I think it’s the opposite issue. I think we are overly aggressive and lack the emotional control around when to rush an attacking player.

3) The positive is outside of Watson none of the injuries are long term so there is still plenty of time to get this team fit and firing for the year. I’m not too concerned yet, admittedly the next few weeks will be tough with numbers available.

I hadn't considered what you've raised about the world cup and I think you make a very good point.

[ARD]

There was a fair bit of carnage across the board over the weekend, not just for us. Speed of game, trying to introduce more fatigue, higher rates of sin bins, World Cup etc puts a lot of strain on the players… I’d love to see a Roosters squad fully fit and come away with a win, without a suspension or injury. Feels like an eternity.

[redwhiteblue]

Agreed. IMO an unfortunate fact of footy is that it's a sport and getting the best outta players involves pushing them so hard that they can get injured.

As a dad who is semi-competitive with distance running, a large part of my training is not getting hurt. While training for general fitness and self-preservation works well for me, it's not the way to win a premiership in the NRL.

I dunno why we always start slow but we do and it's something Robbo's working on. Under roughly a decade of Robbo's coaching we've made the finals every year but one and won 3 premierships. Things could certainly be a lot worse!

I know that no-one wants to be the March premiers..

[nayfo]

We were blessed with injuries during 18/19 even though Cronk was injured we still had the core playing group to get us home.
we’re just going through an extended period of injuries. Eventually it will swing in our favour, I just hope we still have a strong playing group by then.