Locker Room: Sydney Roosters should be NRL premiership favourites but have had more players suspended than any other club
The Sydney Roosters should be premiership-favourites, but instead they’re the premiership bad boys, with their own self-destruction holding them back, writes David Riccio. See the alarming statistics.
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By Friday the State of Origin post-mortem will be over and debate will switch to Penrith’s tilt for a fourth-straight premiership.
That’s when we’ll know for certain if star halfback Nathan Cleary is back against the Dolphins next Sunday after 10-weeks out.
It’s widely considered that given Penrith are sitting second on the NRL ladder without their champion playmaker, that they only need their puppeteer back on the field to become the first team to win four consecutive premierships since the mighty St George Dragons through 1956-1966.
Maybe. Or maybe not.
Here’s another point of view.
If Penrith are where they are without their main man, which is duly saluted, then what about the job the Roosters are doing?
They’ve had more players miss games through suspension than any other team – close to double any other club – yet they’re in third spot on the NRL ladder.
I’d go so far as to say that the Roosters deserve to be premiership-favourites with only their own self-destruction capable of holding them back.
In total, the at-times headless Chooks have had more players suspended this season over longer periods than any of their rivals.
They’re also easily the most penalised side in the NRL with 7.3 penalties per-game conceded.
The Bulldogs are a distant second with 5.9 penalties conceded.
The numbers show that the Roosters only need to keep their heads, or at least sharpen their discipline, to be the true heavyweight of the entire competition.
They’ve lost players to suspension for a combined 23 matches, the latest being enforcer Jared Waerea-Hargreaves’ four-week ban after failing to have a grade two careless high tackle charge downgraded last Tuesday.
The Roosters must march on without their veteran leader having already navigated through the suspensions of Spencer Leniu (eight matches), Dominic Young (two matches), Sandon Smith (one match), Joseph Suaalii (four matches from Origin I) and Junior Pauga (four matches).
It says something further about where the Roosters are headed in September if they can fix their discipline when the Wests Tigers – down the bottom of the NRL ladder – are the only other team that comes close to the amount of matches their players have missed through suspension with 12.
Some of the thread-work that Roosters coach Trent Robinson has had to perform in order to patch-up his almost weekly omissions due to suspension includes moving forward Sitili Tupouniua to the centres, recycling veteran centre Michael Jennings from NSW Cup and blooding the likes of Blake Steep and Ethan King.
Despite the constant upheaval to their roster, the Roosters went into this weekend with the best attack in the league, averaging 30-points per-game. Melbourne – who the Roosters play next Saturday night – rank second with 27.5 points per-game.
If defence wins premierships, the Roosters are also right there.
They boast the third best defence in the NRL, leaking 17.5 points per-game compared to the mighty Panthers 15-points per-game.
What the Roosters are showing through this season is an extension of their maturity and growth that spawned from adversity at the back end of last season.
The Roosters won just three games between Rounds 10 and 22 in 2023 and bottomed out with a thrashing by the Broncos to sit 14th on the ladder with just five games left in the regular season.
To play finals, they needed to win every game and also have results fall their way.
The Roosters won five games in a row to clinch their finals spot.
This season, instead of faltering, they’re humming over the weekly hurdle of missing key players due to suspensions.
The Roosters don’t play Penrith again during the regular season.
The next time they meet will be in the grand final.
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