Roosters have put aside emotional start and are out to bring down Broncos
EMOTION bubbled over as the Roosters ran out to face the Warriors last week, but some honesty and home truths have them steeled to take down Brisbane.
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EMOTION bubbled over as the Roosters ran out to face the Warriors last week, but some honesty and home truths have them steeled to take down Brisbane on Friday night.
The experienced Roosters outfit have shaken off the highs and lows of round one after some players were overcome as they took the field at ANZ Stadium last week.
It wasn’t just weeks of build up, but years for many of the players in the NRLW.
Roosters coach Adam Hartigan said it wasn’t the reason his team went down to a strong Warriors outfit, but his players now know there’s no room for coasting in this competition.
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“We’ve had a good week. We’ve had a few home truths about where we’re at,” Hartigan said.
“After one game, if it were the men’s competition you’d probably have a laugh considering it’s a long season, but I think we needed to have that chat about ‘you can’t just be happy being there’. You have to go out and actually show it’s the reason we’ve been brought into the Roosters.
“There’s a few things that happened last Saturday that didn’t necessarily impact the result, stuff I didn’t find out until during the week; there were a few tears as players ran out the tunnel.
“We were all there to play and try to win, for some of us it was the realisation that we were there and they were just happy to be there and sort of forgot what it is that got them to that position … The team’s spoken about that and I’d like to think that will be different come Friday night.”
The reality of a three-week season has hit hard this week as the Roosters’ first-up loss puts them in a must-win situation tonight if they’re to be a chance of being there on grand final day.
The Broncos were dominant in their 30-4 win over the Dragons and Hartigan expects them to arrive in Sydney with the intent of sealing their place in the decider.
One positive out of last week’s game for the Roosters is the knowledge of how much better they can be.
With 15 NRL elite top 40 players boasting Jillaroos and Origin experience, there’s confidence they can turn around their performance.
“We felt like we didn’t really show enough enthusiasm, we didn’t go out there with the intent to what we wanted to,” Hartigan said.
“We gave up a lot of energy at the start of the game considering that much ball we turned over. To the Warriors credit, they played really well and defended really well but we didn’t feel like we threw much at them in terms of what we’d been training for.
“There’s a bit of pressure, but the main thing is there’s been good talk all week about there being no better week for it because we know the Broncos, with the way they played, they’re going to turn up ready to play and we’re going to have to be at our best if we’re any chance.”
The Roosters are boosted by the addition of Ruan Sims, who missed last week with a hamstring injury, while captain Simaima Taufa is an outside chance to play after damaging her MCL last week.
“I’m going to give Simaima up until kick-off,” Hartigan said.
“She’s super professional, she has done above and beyond what a professional athlete would need to do to get herself right, even missing sleep to recover. She’s got herself into a position where she’s a slim chance.”
The battle will be fought in the middle. The Broncos have a number of Kiwi Ferns forwards, while Hartigan wants to see his players take it through the middle before using strike outside backs like Isabelle Kelly and Taleena Simon.
“They’re going to play some footy on the edges but they’re going to try to come through our middle based on what we saw against the Dragons,” he said.
“We’d like to (use the edges) but you can’t do that unless you lay a platform.
“You can’t just give the ball straight to the centres and expect to tear them up. You still need to go back and forth a bit through the middle and be able to hold them. Vanessa Folikai will do that tomorrow I’m sure.”