Crawley Files: Sydney Roosters remain the Jekyll and Hyde of the NRL

THE Roosters were supposed to be competition heavyweights but their Jekyll and Hyde tendencies have continued on from last year writes PAUL CRAWLEY.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — APRIL 12: Roosters players show their dejection during the round six NRL match between the Sydney Roosters and the South Sydney Rabbitohs at Allianz Stadium on April 12, 2018 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

THEY say it for a reason: grand finals aren’t won in April.

But heading into round seven and not much has changed for the Sydney Roosters. They are still the Jekyll and Hyde of this competition.

So far, their big boys only appear willing to turn up when their egos are bruised, with a form-line dependent on headlines.

Tickle their tummy and they fall asleep.

Whack them with a stick and they bite back.

Go lightly again, and they fall into bad habits.

Yes, the season is only a quarter of the way through.

And we wouldn’t be silly enough to suggest the Roosters don’t still deserve to be rated among the genuine premiership threats.

The Roosters were dominated in the middle of the field against South Sydney.

But, and it is a very big BUT: at what point does consistency become an issue that forces some tough decisions on Trent Robinson?

Don’t underestimate just how big a game this is against Canterbury, especially given the Roosters’ next match on Anzac Day is against competition leaders St George Illawarra.

The last time the Roosters played the Bulldogs, in round two, Dean Pay’s side had no answer to the Roosters’ firepower. It finished 30-12, and the Dogs were lucky the scoreline wasn’t worse.

But last week against the Cowboys, Aaron Woods had his best game for his new club and David Klemmer was at his rampaging best.

Woods and Klemmer will turn up, giving themselves every chance getting over the Roosters through the middle.

Which brings us back to the issue that critics and fans have been talking about ever since the Roosters were steamrolled by North Queensland in last year’s preliminary final, when Jason Taumalolo ran riot.

The growing fear from experts and fans is that the Roosters’ problems run deeper than attitude.

What their form this season has highlighted is that the problems were not all directly related to Mitchell Pearce. As Cooper Cronk is now discovering.

It wasn’t the first time the Roosters were worked over in a big game.

And it only raises more questions if the Roosters spent their money in the wrong areas by bringing in Cronk and James Tedesco and expecting them to fix what was wrong.

There is no doubt the Roosters’ backline is the NRL’s most dangerous.

From Cronk to Tedesco, Luke Keary, Blake Ferguson and Latrell Mitchell, they can rip teams to shreds at any point on the field.

But they can’t do it when their forwards aren’t winning the battle, which is directly related to their inconsistent start.

Michael Ennis was sitting beside Cronk at the desk in Fox League during the week when Ennis told it straight: “I thought the other night, again, they just didn’t turn up and South Sydney rolled through your middle.

“That opening 40 minutes was diabolical through the centre third.”

Last week the Roosters lost their best go-forward man when Sio Siua Taukeiaho suffered a knee injury during the warm-up.

Perhaps Mitchell Pearce wasn’t the problem?

But don’t forget Souths were also without Sam Burgess.

Yet Tom and George looked unstoppable at times. And on the back of them, Damien Cook cut the Roosters to pieces.

Which exposed another concern: Jake Friend’s creativity at dummy half.

While Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Dylan Napa have been under the pump all season, even their own fans are starting to turn on Friend.

Last week there was a group who reportedly banged on the window of Robinson’s coaching box, demanding Friend be replaced by young Victor Radley.

The Roosters also bought Kurt Baptise this year, but so far the former Raider hasn’t got a shot in the top grade.

There is no chance Robinson will drop Friend. Nor should he.

But the hooker has to change his ways because, again, we keep going back to the same problems.

Fans have turned on Jake Friend.

Ennis brought it up with Cronk. What they spoke about was as interesting as it was honest.

Too often Friend tries to come up with the trick plays, and they backfire on the team.

Like last week, when he kicked down that short side and again gave up a seven-tackle set.

As Cronk explained, Friend’s strength is his courage and work ethic, and that’s what he should be focusing on.

“Jack Friend will put his head in places I wouldn’t put my feet,” Cronk said.

“While he might not have the creativity or the flair of other creative dummy halves in the game, geez, he does his strengths really well.

“And what he should do is focus on the two, three things that he brings to a football team and just ram them home.

“He doesn’t need to be doing trick plays out the back. We have enough talent there for that.”

No doubt, the Roosters have spoken about all this internally because we knew all this before round one.

But it’s now round seven, and we’re still talking about it.

DIVING AWARDS

Sam Burgess spoke his mind this week about Josh Morris’s role in the South Sydney enforcer being suspended.

I reckon the incident warranted a penalty at best, certainly not a two-game ban.

I know Burgess would have only copped one week if he pleaded guilty, but that only exposes the flaw in the judiciary system.

Anyway, Burgess made a really good point when talking about the evolving problem of players overreacting to milk penalties.

Like Billy Slater’s diving efforts in the past two weeks that has resulted in opposition players being sin-binned.

With so much concern surrounding player welfare, only Morris knows if the incident warranted his reaction. For that reason, this is a problem only the players can fix.

NO WAY: Morris says he’d never dive

ACCUSE: Burgess wants “Hollywood” out of the game

MANLY’S BAD CALL

In the wash-up from the Sea Eagles’ loss to Wests Tigers last Sunday, Trent Barrett ripped into his players, demanding more resolve.

But what Manly fans may have missed was the first penalty, in just the second minute, that actually set up the first-half momentum swing.

It was one of the worst calls you will ever see.

Manly’s defence had absolutely pumped the Tigers, pinning them 12 metres out on the fourth tackle. And the referee actually had the Sea Eagles back a good 12-13 metres.

Eagle-cam clearly shows they didn’t jump the gun. Yet the pocket ref still blew a penalty.

It was disgraceful.

For starters, it’s shouldn’t be the job of the pocket ref to make that call when the other ref was holding the line.

From that moment, Manly defended nine straights sets and didn’t get the ball back until the 18th minute, when they were trailing 14-0.

You talk about game-changing decisions.

The refs are getting plenty of cheers for this penalty blitz.

Again, it goes back to consistency. Not just blowing the whistle to make a point.

Were Manly dudded against the Tigers?

THUMBS UP

Ronnie Palmer has long been one of the game’s most likeable characters.

But the Wests Tigers’ veteran fitness guru outdid himself with the magic trick he pulled out to inspire the players at Brookvale last Sunday.

Palmer halted the players before they ran out against Manly and chucked up a box of confetti to give them “energy”.

Palmer’s reasoning was that Ivan Cleary wanted the players to “start fast”.

As pumped up as they were, the players couldn’t help but laugh. As did everyone who saw it on TV.

#NRLWAKEUPTODD

Todd Greenberg should have better things to do than wasting his time on Twitter blaming the media for the all bad news in the NRL world.

In case Greenberg hasn’t noticed, his speech writers have been spinning the same line since the day he came into the job.

Every season launch, every Dally M Awards night, it’s like Groundhog Day.

Perhaps Greenberg would be better served not trying to dictate and instead concentrated on what he can fix.

And if he thinks it’s just the “crisis merchants” in the media to blame, have a look at any NRL club fan forum and see what the punters talk about.

NO IDEA AWARD

Still on leadership, or lack of it. Perhaps the NRL needs to buy new chairman Peter Beattie a red nose, a wig and one of those flowers that squirts water if the new ARL Commission chairman wants to continue to play the clown.

First, Beattie didn’t know who the Cronulla Sharks were in his interview with Phil Gould.

This week he embarrassed himself again when he mistook a young fan wearing a Barcelona football shirt as a Newcastle supporter.

That came while Beattie was explaining his role in the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony stuff-up. It really is embarrassing.

Originally published as Crawley Files: Sydney Roosters remain the Jekyll and Hyde of the NRL