Sam Walker is committed to Sydney Roosters despite being dropped

[Rooster_6]

The Eels have only won one less than game than the Warriors and have only conceded 16pts more. And they have a differential that is 50pts better.

In that Eels game we completed at 85% and made 7 line breaks. It was 5 trys to 1 before we switched off late. Against the Warriors we only made 2 line breaks.

The Souffs win was a delightful miracle. They completed at 62% but made 7 line breaks to our 4.

So to me that Eels game was by far the most fluent we looked all season; even more impressive with Teddy going off early with the HIA. It's the only time we've looked fluent in attack all year.

Comparing attacking stats on a dry track comapred to what was a very flooded field in New Zealand is dishonest at best.

There's two sides to the game, you seem very focused on attacking stats, you only have to score 1 more than your opponent to win. Holding your opponent to 0 is the equivalent of scoring 40, you're not getting beaten (999 times out of 1000)

[Water boy]

The Eels have only won one less than game than the Warriors and have only conceded 16pts more. And they have a differential that is 50pts better.

In that Eels game we completed at 85% and made 7 line breaks. It was 5 trys to 1 before we switched off late. Against the Warriors we only made 2 line breaks.

The Souffs win was a delightful miracle. They completed at 62% but made 7 line breaks to our 4.

So to me that Eels game was by far the most fluent we looked all season; even more impressive with Teddy going off early with the HIA. It's the only time we've looked fluent in attack all year.

Sad but true

[Kelby]

I am afraid we have lost Sammy to the Dolphins in 2026, if not earlier.
Skeletor and Sammy photos doing the rounds up here after being spotted at the Farmhouse Kedron together.

Thanks Trent!

[theGman]

Is Smithy injured already ffs?

Lol forgot about him.

[bondi.boy]

2022
Sunday
Sept 11
Sydney Roosters v S Syd Rabbits

Roosters team:

1. Tedesco
2. Tupou
3. Momirovski
4. Hutchison
5. Suaalii
6. Luke Keary
7. Sam Walker
8. JWH
9. Verrills
10. SST
11. Crichton
12. Nat Butcher
13. Radley

14. Watson
15. Egan Butcher
16. Keighran
17. Lodge

6 and 7
Keary and Walker.

Maybe the problems now are somewhere else.

Keighran
Verrills
Watson
Momirovski
Tupou
...all missing.

and
Manu
Cheese Smith
B Smith
Sitili
are new.

[gragra]

I am afraid we have lost Sammy to the Dolphins in 2026, if not earlier.
Skeletor and Sammy photos doing the rounds up here after being spotted at the Farmhouse Kedron together.

Thanks Trent!

Can you verify by posting an image?

[Eggspert]

Yes, I think that game or the Souths game were our best performances to date.



Hit hard by injury is an exaggeration, their big out was Tohu Harris, CNK isnt even a top 10 fullback. No JWH or Tupou for us equalled that.

Much better than beating an Eels side currently sitting in the bottom 5 with defence more brittle than 1ply public toilet paper.



That's another lie, I posted in off-season I thought Robinson had the halves pairing wrong and that it was going to cause issues with Walker. I've since posted that Manu has had his fair crack and needs to be swapped out after last week's game and said openly my 6 would be Walker and my 7 would be Keary.

12 weeks ago I posted after the pre-season trials that Suaalii did not have transferable skills to make it at centre, certainly not at this point in his career and we should hive Pauga a go (happy with Billy Smith now he's back from injury).

And I have posted for years that Manu is not a 5/8 to the point where some posters pulled up old quotes from me dismissing his ability when he got named there 3 weeks ago to rub it in.

WHAT I THINK though is that the rhetoric is over the top, do I disagree with Robinson.. yes if you actually read my posts you would realise that.

But I also think people are exaggerating facts or twisting events to suit their argument.

Selecting Suaalii at centre is not that ridiculous, especially after the performances of Paulo. I understand the rationale behind it.

Giving Manu a crack in the halves is not crazy, hes clearly very talented and may well make a fist of it there one day down the line.

Making the decision that you're going to invest in Walkers development as a halfback instead of moving him into a more creative role which we know he can already perform isn't crazy it's founded in sound logic.

But this attitude of how could anyone not agree with my opinion... to your words they must be CRAZY is ignorant. I'm just trying to provide some balance to the discussion.

If you think Robinson's selections are crazy and don't know how anyone could ever hold a different opinion then I love your confidence but I don't don't subscribe to the theory that there is only right or wrong, crazy or sane I think there's more to these decisions than that and Robinson isn't the fool so many want to paint him to be.

Originally when Walker was dropped you did say he needed to go back to reserves & work on his game for "A couple of months" which indeed I term as crazy talk due to the fact that would totally put us out of finals contention with Manu at #6

Glad to see you now agree that Walker has to come straight back.

The tide has now very recently turned with fans & in the media against Robbo's selections. He is being called out on it rightfully so.

There can be no more defence of Manu in Walker's spot & Suaalii in the centres.

Call it quirky, weird, odd or whatever but if we go in with this named team on Friday & get pumped then yes anyone who still supports Robbo after that is definitely crazy.

[Lockie]

I am afraid we have lost Sammy to the Dolphins in 2026, if not earlier.
Skeletor and Sammy photos doing the rounds up here after being spotted at the Farmhouse Kedron together.

Thanks Trent!

Unfortunately it’s looking that way . Telegraph is now reporting it as well . Trent was asked in the presser after the game about Sam and his response was that he’s gone home sick . Sams dropping due to form is just smoke and mirrors . There is way more to this story and my money is on Sam slagging off Robbos coaching to his family back home and it’s got back to the club . Really hope I’m wrong mind you.

[Dr. Voodoo Man]

If we lose Walker I would say Robbo would lose a lot of support. I still back him but losing Walker would be hard to take.

[rented tracksuit]

Lol forgot about him.

Tbh, I don’t blame ya.

[Steggles]

Unfortunately it’s looking that way . Telegraph is now reporting it as well . Trent was asked in the presser after the game about Sam and his response was that he’s gone home sick . Sams dropping due to form is just smoke and mirrors . There is way more to this story and my money is on Sam slagging off Robbos coaching to his family back home and it’s got back to the club . Really hope I’m wrong mind you.

If we lose Walker we have a significant issue. Keary is playing poorly, has lost his pace and is on the verge of retirement and Manu is not a 6. That leaves us with exactly SFA in terms of a halves pairing in the medium term (next year). Unbelievable for a supposed powerhouse like the Roosters to get it so wrong.

[HunchoRooster]

If we lose Walker we have a significant issue. Keary is playing poorly, has lost his pace and is on the verge of retirement and Manu is not a 6. That leaves us with exactly SFA in terms of a halves pairing in the medium term (next year). Unbelievable for a supposed powerhouse like the Roosters to get it so wrong.

Unless we have a huge coup planned for next year (Hunt, Munster, ???) this would have to go down as one of the worst pieces of business in history.

Whatever we think of Robinson and his stubborness with selections, there MUST be more than meets the eye for Walker to be dropped. We have been utter shite since he got dropped, arguably our best player has looked absolutely at sea in the 5/8 position and our attack has lost even more sting.

The areas of the game that Sam needs to work on are his long kicking game and his size... those things don't come in reserve grade. They come from hardened first grade experience and age. Despite my constant complaints, Robbo certainly knows more about footy than I do and knows Sam personally and I don't... There has to be some sort of fallout. No way Sam Walker would be dropped and fed to the wolves if it was simply form based. If that was the case, Robbo would've moved Joey back to the centres immediately. I see us losing him very soon to the Dolphins, who would have a war chest.

I don't think they will hurt us ala Fatrell at Souffs given the Fins are a few years away from seriously challenging, but it will mean we have no long-term halfback sorted and will be heavily reliant on going to market and buying a readymade player for another 2-3 year stint like Cronk to remain competitive and then rinse and repeat given there is such a low depth of quality young halves coming through that could win us a comp.

[rented tracksuit]

The writing appears to have been in the wall for while now. I hope it’s just graffiti tho.

[ChookMaster]

If we lose Sam we are all in sorts. Who’s going to replace him? Pearce? Bahahaha i hope what Badel is reporting is wrong… dolphins fans already licking their lips at the prospect of a Katoa X Walker combination. Please Robbo sort this out

[Steggles]

Unless we have a huge coup planned for next year (Hunt, Munster, ???) this would have to go down as one of the worst pieces of business in history.

Whatever we think of Robinson and his stubborness with selections, there MUST be more than meets the eye for Walker to be dropped. We have been utter shite since he got dropped, arguably our best player has looked absolutely at sea in the 5/8 position and our attack has lost even more sting.

The areas of the game that Sam needs to work on are his long kicking game and his size... those things don't come in reserve grade. They come from hardened first grade experience and age. Despite my constant complaints, Robbo certainly knows more about footy than I do and knows Sam personally and I don't... There has to be some sort of fallout. No way Sam Walker would be dropped and fed to the wolves if it was simply form based. If that was the case, Robbo would've moved Joey back to the centres immediately. I see us losing him very soon to the Dolphins, who would have a war chest.

I don't think they will hurt us ala Fatrell at Souffs given the Fins are a few years away from seriously challenging, but it will mean we have no long-term halfback sorted and will be heavily reliant on going to market and buying a readymade player for another 2-3 year stint like Cronk to remain competitive and then rinse and repeat given there is such a low depth of quality young halves coming through that could win us a comp.

Yep, bloody hard to fathom what’s actually going on and I’m convinced it’s something that we are not aware of……..I don’t believe for one minute it’s Walker’s form or development.. I posted the following on another thread yesterday….

This whole backline selection drama still makes little sense to me and whilst Robbo has made selection blunders in the past and can be quite stubborn, I just can’t see him being so blind to what the impact is on our performance and not actually doing something proactive about it. He must surely know that we are dishing up absolute shit at the moment.

There’s only three possible theories that I have;

1. Robbo has lost the plot entirely, or

2. Walker (or his family) has done something terrible that hasn’t been reported, or

3. Keary has informed the club around the Parra game of his decision that this is indeed his last year, so Robbo believes he needs Manu to quickly build a 5/8 skillset whilst still having Keary on the field to provide Manu some guidance. This necessitates Robbo persisting with Suaalii at centre for the time being, even though he’s been terrible. If this is true, it’s not really about Walker’s form (although down a bit in the last 2 games he played) and it’s not about developing Suaalii as a centre (although it probably was before he signed with RA); it’s all about building Manu into a 5/8 as replacement for a soon departing Keary. So if this theory is correct, Walker’s being sacrificed to reserve grade so that Manu can learn and I would assume that Walker would have been made well aware of the reasons. Further, this would probably mean we won’t be seeing Walker back in firsts until Manu has mastered the positional change……my guess is next year after a full off-season. A bit like moving the house to tighten the clothesline, but that’s what a deep thinker who fancies himself as a master strategist might do. Gambling with this year’s results in the hope that the 5/8 transition works to improve prospects for next year and beyond. If this is right, I’d say Suaalii will be back to the wing once we have two real centres available at the same time, probably Smith and Momo, and he will not required at all next year with all the pommy backs coming. I have no inside info, just a WAG.

TBH, I’m still not 100% convinced it’s not option 1, I doubt option 2, but I’d sort of get it if it was option 3.