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Great article from Andrew Webster here. Blaming Friend is popular and there is hatred towards Robinson but our big name halfback simply has not aimed up at all this season. 3 try assists according to this article, that’s pathetic.
The Cooper Cronk experiment isn’t working for the Roosters — can he change?
Last Thursday, after being thumped in the Anzac Day match against the Dragons, the Roosters made the long, exhausting trip over the Harbour Bridge to teammate Cooper Cronk’s $3.5 million home at Mosman for a barbecue.
In between solving the problems of the world over the Jatz and dip, we can’t help but wonder if any of the players asked a delicate question …
“Um, Coops … Any danger of firing a shot this season, big fella?”
On the surface, it’s a valid question: according to Champion Data, Cronk has provided just three try assists and two line-break assists so far this season.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson can bang on as much as he wants about building houses and foundations but the very costly Cronk experiment — reportedly at $1 million per season and at the expense of the popular Mitchell Pearce — is yet to really bear fruit.
Let’s ponder the obvious hypothetical question: if the Roosters had also kept Pearce as they wanted, instead of granting him a release to the Knights, would they have dropped Cronk — one of the most dominant halfbacks in the past decade — or persisted with an attack that’s as smooth as sandpaper?
Cronk didn’t sign with the Roosters until late October but the Roosters can hardly complain about taking time to adjust with a new-look team. They’ve added one of the great halfbacks to their line-up, along with one of the game’s best fullbacks in James Tedesco.
Teams like the Dragons and Knights have had greater upheaval and player turnover, yet they are playing with far greater fluency than the eastern suburbs glamour club that always gets the biggest names, the best players.
Some judges could forecast this early season pain with Cronk coming into the Roosters side.
It’s become a cliché about how structured, almost robotic, his game is. That’s not a criticism. Playing under the People’s Republic of Craig Bellamy, he rarely made a mistake when he was in his pomp. He is what he is.
Better judges than this one will tell you the game has changed, though. The teams that play structured footy are beginning to struggle. Defences are too well-drilled, too disciplined, and especially so with the increase in penalties when players are given more time to recover before defending another set.
There has been talk for the last week or so about the Roosters completely changing their attack to a less structured style and it will be fascinating to see if Cronk can bend and become something that he is not — or less comfortable with — as the season unfolds.
The year is only young but the Roosters are four-and-four and anything less than a big win over a broken Manly side at Allianz Stadium on Sunday will be considered a setback.
The Dragons were great on Anzac Day but Roosters fans surely left Allianz frustrated.
Modern-day centres don’t seem to get the ball much at all these days but Latrell Mitchell — for mine, the most exciting young player in the game, and that includes Kalyn Ponga — may as well start wearing long sleeve jumpers, he’s that underused.
The man that matters the most — Roosters chairman Nick Politis — is not panicking. He sees players hurting over their start to the season and knows they are not taking it lightly.
But the Roosters are a club that counts success in premierships. They bought Cronk, just as they bought Sonny Bill Williams a few years back, to deliver one.
They’re a long away from it.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/the...03-p4zd82.html
The Cooper Cronk experiment isn’t working for the Roosters — can he change?
Last Thursday, after being thumped in the Anzac Day match against the Dragons, the Roosters made the long, exhausting trip over the Harbour Bridge to teammate Cooper Cronk’s $3.5 million home at Mosman for a barbecue.
In between solving the problems of the world over the Jatz and dip, we can’t help but wonder if any of the players asked a delicate question …
“Um, Coops … Any danger of firing a shot this season, big fella?”
On the surface, it’s a valid question: according to Champion Data, Cronk has provided just three try assists and two line-break assists so far this season.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson can bang on as much as he wants about building houses and foundations but the very costly Cronk experiment — reportedly at $1 million per season and at the expense of the popular Mitchell Pearce — is yet to really bear fruit.
Let’s ponder the obvious hypothetical question: if the Roosters had also kept Pearce as they wanted, instead of granting him a release to the Knights, would they have dropped Cronk — one of the most dominant halfbacks in the past decade — or persisted with an attack that’s as smooth as sandpaper?
Cronk didn’t sign with the Roosters until late October but the Roosters can hardly complain about taking time to adjust with a new-look team. They’ve added one of the great halfbacks to their line-up, along with one of the game’s best fullbacks in James Tedesco.
Teams like the Dragons and Knights have had greater upheaval and player turnover, yet they are playing with far greater fluency than the eastern suburbs glamour club that always gets the biggest names, the best players.
Some judges could forecast this early season pain with Cronk coming into the Roosters side.
It’s become a cliché about how structured, almost robotic, his game is. That’s not a criticism. Playing under the People’s Republic of Craig Bellamy, he rarely made a mistake when he was in his pomp. He is what he is.
Better judges than this one will tell you the game has changed, though. The teams that play structured footy are beginning to struggle. Defences are too well-drilled, too disciplined, and especially so with the increase in penalties when players are given more time to recover before defending another set.
There has been talk for the last week or so about the Roosters completely changing their attack to a less structured style and it will be fascinating to see if Cronk can bend and become something that he is not — or less comfortable with — as the season unfolds.
The year is only young but the Roosters are four-and-four and anything less than a big win over a broken Manly side at Allianz Stadium on Sunday will be considered a setback.
The Dragons were great on Anzac Day but Roosters fans surely left Allianz frustrated.
Modern-day centres don’t seem to get the ball much at all these days but Latrell Mitchell — for mine, the most exciting young player in the game, and that includes Kalyn Ponga — may as well start wearing long sleeve jumpers, he’s that underused.
The man that matters the most — Roosters chairman Nick Politis — is not panicking. He sees players hurting over their start to the season and knows they are not taking it lightly.
But the Roosters are a club that counts success in premierships. They bought Cronk, just as they bought Sonny Bill Williams a few years back, to deliver one.
They’re a long away from it.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/the...03-p4zd82.html
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