‘Ruthless’: Roosters hypocritical act laid bare as Brandon Smith faces exit

The Sydney Roosters have been called out over a hypocritical act amid their attempts to push Brandon Smith out of the club.

Brandon Smith is on the outer.

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The Roosters have become one of the most enviable clubs in the land, and all its cost them is every last trace of goodwill from the rugby league public.

How?

Because in their relentless pursuit of the holy grail, the Bondi club has been less a monastery and more like Hillsong, only with extra tax exemptions.

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Whether pillaging poorly clubs, signing gun players at bargain prices or just crying foul over send-offs that actually deserved incarceration, the Roosters make the Mexican cartel look like a paragon of virtue.

But for all their sins, the club’s latest move to issue Brandon Smith a breach notice for missing a team meeting might be the meanest manipulation of their malleable morals yet.

If the Roosters prematurely part ways with Smith - and let’s be honest, they probably will - it will be one of their greatest exhibitions of bent principles.

Brandon Smith at Sydney Roosters team training at Moore Park this week. Picture by Max Mason-Hubers

After reuniting with Michael Jennings despite his recent past and retaining Spencer Leniu following a racial slur - not to mention a rich history of hiring other convicted bad boys - Roosters officials getting moralistic over sleeping-in is like reporting someone for jaywalking in a looting riot.

And while this incident alone will not be enough to tear up Smith’s contract, whispers indicate it could be the first in a death by a thousand show cause notices.

According to The Mole on the Wide World of Sports, Roosters officials are “fed up” with the rugged rake and missing the team meeting was only “the tip of the iceberg.”

But what are Smith’s crimes other than being a larrikin and appearing on 350 podcasts a week?

Rest assured, whatever they are, they haven’t involved police or cultural training.

Michael Jennings has been welcomed back to the NRL by the Roosters. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Brandon Smith is on the outer. (Photo by Jeremy Ng/Getty Images)

In fact, Smith’s only indictable crime thus far is costing the Roosters $850,000 a year.

And while his performances on the paddock have been admirably blue-collar, he hasn’t blown the doors off the joint as his cost price warrants.

Add the stellar form of Connor Watson at a significantly lower fee, and you can easily see why the Roosters have hit a sultana with a sledgehammer.

Sure, Smith has made all the right noises since breaking the rules, even vowing to lift his game with a new haircut and a shave.

But the club’s heavy rebuke reeks of an exit strategy that’s already in motion, one designed to rid themselves of an expensive commodity they no longer covet, even if it’s revamped and hairless.

Yes, we all accept there is no excuse for a footballer missing a meeting in this era of professionalism and nursery clocks, but this breach notice is like a narky consumer nitpicking a condition in a returns policy.

Roosters coach Trent Robinson is a ruthless operator. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

Of course, everyone knows Smith is a boofhead.

He’s a loveable class clown with no filter and a history of mental shanks, and to be fair, his primary deficiency is not understanding the dangers of a recording device.

But this was no secret to the Roosters when they recruited him, and you can’t cry foul over larrikinism when you wilfully sign someone nicknamed “Hectic Cheese.”

But that’s the Roosters for you.

When the Bondi club cuts adrift a player, we call it ruthless business. But when any other club does it, we call the union.

But that won’t the stop the powerhouse club putting premierships before purity.

The Roosters have always prided themselves on reforming a bad boy, especially if they can pump out 20 minutes off the bench at Origin time.

Connor Watson has emerged as a great option at hooker. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)

They’ve lost no sleep hiring guys like Blake Ferguson, Todd Carney, Matt Lodge, Paul Carter and Zane Tetevano and even tolerating the comparably-less shonky Mitchell Pearce, a kid whose fallibilities were managed but only until a better halfback came along.

But if the club prides itself on turning around the lives of troubled young men, it can’t abandon a funboy for tomfoolery simply because his service from dummy half sucks.

- Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Originally published as ‘Ruthless’: Roosters hypocritical act laid bare as Brandon Smith faces exit