{"id":294257,"date":"2023-05-08T02:57:01","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T02:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=294257"},"modified":"2023-05-08T03:58:45","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T03:58:45","slug":"horrendous-flaw-thats-derailed-roosters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=294257","title":{"rendered":"'Horrendous' flaw that's derailed Roosters"},"content":{"rendered":"

NRL great PAUL GALLEN will appear on Nine's 100% FOOTY every Monday night of the NRL season, debating rugby league's hottest topics alongside Phil Gould and James Bracey. Tune in tonight at 10.20pm (AEST) following a bumper round 10!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I wrote at the start of the year that the Sydney Roosters<\/a> have the best team in the competition on paper<\/a>, and that I expected them to finish in the top four.<\/p>\n

I'm not prepared to write them off just yet, but I tell you what, they're going to need to improve a hell of a lot from what I've seen in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

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They've won two of their last five, and you wouldn't say either of those wins were convincing. They got the cash against the Warriors, but only a late field goal got them home against the Dragons, who are in the middle of a miserable five-match losing streak.<\/p>\n

The simple reality is the Roosters have been pretty ordinary in the last month or so.<\/p>\n

\"Roosters<\/p>\n

But the one thing I know about Trent Robinson is that I don't think he'll be overly concerned by that.<\/p>\n

I think he's all about being fully primed and ready to go for the finals. There's no doubt there's room for improvement, because they're in about second gear at the moment.<\/p>\n

Stream the NRL premiership 2023 live and free on<\/strong> 9Now<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

For me, their discipline is horrendous, it's really bad. By discipline I don't mean just penalties, I'm talking about things like completion rates as well.<\/p>\n

They're really letting themselves down at crucial moments of the game.<\/p>\n

They've only scored 153 points this season, which is an average of 17 per game. That's a concern, it's the second worst in the competition. You won't win a heap of games by scoring 17 points, regardless of how good your defence is.<\/p>\n

Only the Wests Tigers have scored fewer points this year than the Roosters, and we know where the Tigers are on the ladder.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Everyone knows how important the spine is to each team, it's crucial. You need a good spine and a couple of good front rowers, obviously. Their spine has been shuffled around, and Luke Keary<\/a> probably isn't doing what he's done in the past.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I'm not sure whether that's because he's worried about his own game or maybe the combination with Joey Manu isn't working just yet.<\/p>\n

I like the move to put Manu at five-eighth, but he's not really a traditional ball-playing five-eighth, he's more of a runner.<\/p>\n

The Roosters would have done the whole pre-season with Sam Walker<\/a> and Keary in the halves. Virtually every session would have had those two together. Maybe now they need time to adjust.<\/p>\n

When teams are struggling you find the halfback often goes back to the plays he likes, they fall into the routine they're used to. It's possible Keary's combination with Manu isn't where he'd like it, but I think long-term it's the right move.<\/p>\n

Manu getting his hands on the ball so often is a positive for me, so maybe they just need to work out how to get the best out of that.<\/p>\n

I'm still not prepared to write them off. They've won five matches, which is the same as the Panthers in third spot, and James Tedesco is still the best player in the world.<\/p>\n

What we know is that every game is so crucial this year, with the ladder being so tight, and that will make the State of Origin period so fascinating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\ufeffThe Roosters may not actually lose too many players. For me, James Tedesco and Lindsay Collins are the only two certainties to play Origin, and there's a couple of others who are maybes, like Angus Crichton and Joseph Suaalii.<\/p>\n

It wouldn't surprise me if we see a few changes to the ladder by the time we come out of the Origin period, and with Trent Robinson being so good at timing his team's run to perfection, they could really benefit. \ufeff<\/p>\n

Robbo said the Roosters were playing too much as individuals, and I reckon that's what had happened to the Cowboys as well, who everyone, including me, tipped to be a top-four side. The Cowboys played as a team on the weekend and made the Roosters pay for it.<\/p>\n

I reckon if you'd asked the Cowboys players before that match, they'd have all said they were playing well and doing their jobs\ufeff, and they probably were. The Roosters players may well have the same attitude.<\/p>\n

But when you're not doing it together, not pushing up in support of the ball carrier, not working together in defence, it just doesn't work.<\/p>\n

The quicker the Roosters work that out the better it will be for their season. As the Cowboys showed, once you find that teamwork, it's makes a huge difference.<\/p>\n

With the quality the Roosters have, once they find it they'll be hard to stop.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NRL great PAUL GALLEN will appear on Nine's 100% FOOTY every Monday night of the NRL season, debating rugby league's hottest topics alongside Phil Gould […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":294259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294262,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294257\/revisions\/294262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/294259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}