Steve Roach on Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Sydney Roosters’ pack problems
IT’S been the big talking point after the Wests Tigers’ shock first-round win. Front-row great Steve Roach has weighed in on the Roosters’ pack problems.
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STEVE “Blocker” Roach fears Jared Waerea-Hargreaves will never be the player he once was.
But it has nothing to do with the Sydney Roosters enforcer losing his aggression, or his commitment.
As big Blocker explained, you go out and try running through a brick wall after having a full knee reconstruction.
Then get up and do it again.
And again and again.
With three blokes clinging to you, twisting your body in every direction.
Week after week.
“People are harsh,” Roach said, coming out in defence of Waerea-Hargreaves ahead of his showdown Friday night with Canterbury’s Test props David Klemmer and Aaron Woods.
It’s been the big talking point all week again after the Wests Tigers’ shock first-round win over the premiership favourites. What’s up with the Roosters pack? Michael Ennis didn’t mince his words when he spoke on Fox League this week.
Coming off the back of the Roosters pack getting steamrolled by the Jason Taumalolo-led yet understrength North Queensland in last year’s grand final qualifier, Ennis said: “I thought it really exposed the forward pack again for the Roosters.
“Whilst you can have Cooper Cronk there, you can have James Tedesco, you can have everyone.
“Well, they pretty much do (have everyone). But they can’t play that free-flowing football that we all know they are capable of doing unless they have got a platform to play off.
“And I thought that whilst they weren’t poor or atrocious, the Wests Tigers just went after them and essentially won the battle.”
But Roach is convinced you can trace the problems to the end of 2015, when Waerea-Hargreaves’s season ended with surgery.
“People who talk about it don’t understand the hardship of going through a knee reconstruction,” Roach said.
“I know because I went through the same thing. What I will say is that when you do your knee, you have to change your game. Just getting back to play first grade is a long road. I have seen it end careers.
“A lot of people are saying Waerea-Hargreaves isn’t the same as what he was. That is a fact. He is one of the great battering rams.
“But since he’s done his knee, it is hard to do what he used to do because you are never the same.”
That is why Roach believes the Roosters haven’t helped Waerea-Hargreaves by changing the way he plays. When Dean Pay returned to the Bulldogs, the first thing he said was that he wanted to resurrect the “Dogs of War” mentality.
But Roach believes Trent Robinson’s Roosters have to go another way.
In Fox League’s commentary during last week’s loss to the Tigers, Danny Buderus spoke about how Jake Friend needed to play “more upstream” to help his big men.
Roach agreed: “You talk about the great hookers, that is why Cameron Smith is so good.
“His first two steps out of dummy-half are forward.
“He actually engages the markers and the A defender.
“I was lucky, I had Benny (Elias at Balmain). Benny was a genius at creating opportunities for you.
“After I did my knee, I had to change. And I liked to try and get an offload and get those one-on-ones.
“I wouldn’t like to play today. It is all about yardage now. But blokes like Waerea-Hargreaves, once you have done your knee, you have to change up your game.”
While no one is going to write off the pre-season premiership favourites after one game, it is worth mentioning that you have to go back as far as 1980 to find a Roosters side that started the season with back-to-back losses and still made the playoffs. You can only imagine the pressure everyone at the club must be feeling going into the game against the Bulldogs.
Roach believes that Waerea-Hargreaves has been unfairly criticised for something he can’t change.
“You can’t be the same player (after knee surgery),” Roach said.
“He wants to. But while your mind wants to do it, your body just can’t.
“You lose that bit of mobility.
“I don’t care who you are, that is just what happens. And you only have a certain amount of times you can run into someone. It is all right when you are young and don’t give a rat’s arse. You’re 21 or 22, you know what I mean?
“But once you start getting knocked around a little bit … you only need to lose that one or
two per cent and you are back to the field.”