My Fears for This Season

[Mickie Lane]

when we actually looked unstoppable was while Vic was healthy, once he went down, our halves vulnerability started to show its faults.

I still can’t believe how much of a link victor become, if he stayed healthy, we were probably going to win it.

Here’s hoping the most charismatic player we have had for sometime returns healthy and injury free.

It will come down to injuries for the Chooks. If they keep their best 17 on the paddock 90% of the season I believe Lam can fire & they can win the comp. I think the Roosters & our ol mate Souths are the teams to beat at full strength providing Smith doesnt play for Melbourne.

[redwhiteblue]

Canberra scare me as usual. I can never relax when we play against them.

[Kelvin Johnson]

I agree somewhat with your points about how we adjusted to the rule/interpretation changes.

Apart from the obvious injury toll impacting, I think the other 'coaching' faux pas was guiding when we peaked and eased. Timing and preparation normally being Robbos forte.

We dropped our first two games which became a bigger deal than normal with the enforced break. We came back like a steam train and looked set to nail the threepeat. The guys obviously worked harder and smarter than other teams in that break and it showed, we knew we had to make up lost ground.

The payoff though was we couldn’t maintain that pace and standard and an inevitable decline in our energy came.

Robbos too smart not to learn from last year and make the adjustments. It will be very interesting to watch our style of attack, and tactics though. The Roosters Way will still underpin everything with some subtle differences.

I agree timing and preparation normally are Robbo's forte and in a normal season dropping our first two games wouldn't have been such a big deal.
We really got messed around with Covid, V'landys and the injury to Rads.

Robbo has made adjustments, he has always been about defence winning games. That doesn't work under V'landy rules. He has had time to plan better for 2021, rather than on the run like last year.
Expect a much more attacking game from the Roosters in 2021.

[Tommy Smith]

Every team gets injuries.

Remind me again what players the Storm and Panthers were missing come finals time?

Every team gets injuries throughout the season; but the quality teams with the fewest to no key injuries during finals time come up trumps.

For example, Souffs beat Penrith easily with Latrine in that Prelim.

[King Salvo]

Defence will still win games as teams will adjust to the rules including conceding less 6 again etc - I am wondering when this occurs and with the ball in play for longer periods without breaks in the play (i.e no points being scored0 how long will it be before channel 9 advocates for a return to the old rules and or 4 quarter football - They want high scoring games so they can show as many adds as possible

[Kelvin Johnson]

More good news, the holidays are over. Everyone is back on deck Monday.

[trewhella]

I’m confidently pessimistic but happy none the less.
you won’t ever see me bag Robbo again but he might cop it here a bit this year

it’s not just the tactics that we need to change in my opinion.
we had a successful team based on their ability to defend against structured attack. We were the best at it.

you can’t coach older defensive experts to suddenly become attacking weapons. Especially the Morris boys.
Manu was poor backend, he has to liven right up.
Teddy is the best attacking gun in the game.
Keary is v v good but needs support from the forwards gaining assertion so he can run sideways to put the D in two minds.....his half partner must also be good enough to warrant defensive pressure.
the wingers.......Toops another year older as well.
Dads army will struggle against speedy youth with good halves

[Kelvin Johnson]

Defence will still win games as teams will adjust to the rules including conceding less 6 again etc - I am wondering when this occurs and with the ball in play for longer periods without breaks in the play (i.e no points being scored0 how long will it be before channel 9 advocates for a return to the old rules and or 4 quarter football - They want high scoring games so they can show as many adds as possible

To me the game is too fast to play for 80 minutes. I think V'landys' long term plan is 4 quarter football and more adds.

[ism22]

I’m confidently pessimistic but happy none the less.
you won’t ever see me bag Robbo again but he might cop it here a bit this year

it’s not just the tactics that we need to change in my opinion.
we had a successful team based on their ability to defend against structured attack. We were the best at it.

you can’t coach older defensive experts to suddenly become attacking weapons. Especially the Morris boys.
Manu was poor backend, he has to liven right up.
Teddy is the best attacking gun in the game.
Keary is v v good but needs support from the forwards gaining assertion so he can run sideways to put the D in two minds.....his half partner must also be good enough to warrant defensive pressure.
the wingers.......Toops another year older as well.
Dads army will struggle against speedy youth with good halves

Agreed. I think 2020 was unique and we'll have enough time to prep for 2021. In summary:
- COVID stuffed our 25 week plan (we usually start a bit slower - we had to put the truck into 5th gear earlier than expected... it hurt everybody else too but we're a more professional/methodical club so IMO the fact we had tighter plans made it harder for us to adjust, particularly after two pre-COVID losses & frustrating losses to the Storm/Riff early on [one came down to a string of really bad calls] that basically put us out of contention for a top-2 finish).
- We had lotsa injuries and just had to adapt! We used just about everybody in our 30 and had to sign SBW just to have a chance during the finals.
- We were the target so EVERYBODY lifted us (in a game that was already too fast thanks to rule changes) and IMO the b2b premier status made refs give zero shyte about us. I don't wanna be a Trump-esque bitter loser/conspiracy theorist but IMO it was in refs' minds when deciding whether or not we needed a 50:50 penalty. You can't blame the refs but this just added to a string of bad luck... we didn't get any 'lucky' calls (and as usual, our opposition got a looot of 'luck' penalties + 6 again's). Not blaming the refs but to win we had to play well enough that 1 or 2 bad calls against us didn't matter. We didn't! We were too gassed.
- Flanno didn't quite live up to expectation (although IMO he did really well and woulda been the top points scorer if Robbo hadn't hooked him). His fault or otherwise... this coupled with losing Verrills and Radley (then Lam S well!!! This is without mentioning Smith) meant our attack wasn't as sharp as it coulda been. Call me whatever but IMO Penrith and the Raiders wouldn't have narrowly beaten us with Radley and Verrills available. We woulda scored an extra 1 or 2 tries. Flanno NEEDED Radley to support him in ball running/distribution. One of those two woulda fixed it!!! I know injuries happen but it was just really rotten luck. COVID and the rule changes didn't help it either.
- 2020 was just a rotten year! We still finished top-4 which most other teams could only dream about. We had a great season by all means... but to win a premiership you need more than a 'great season'. Particularly when you're going for your 3rd one in a row.

---

In a few months we'll get a clean slate. On the plus side:
- Most of our players will either be available or close to it.
- Friend and Collins are now solid Origin players. I hate QLD but Friend showed lot of heart to win that season (IMO he was ostensibly the captain... a little nugget who never gave up and kept going from strength to strength). Collins levelled up from 'surprisingly good youngster' to the owner of a QLD origin jersey. He is now the standard to beat if you wanna play Origin for QLD in 2021.
- We've all adapted to life with COVID. IMO this year will be more predictable for Robbo's planning.
- For whatever reason Flanno wasn't quite one of the boys (like Hastings... there's rumours but only the inner-circle ever will REALLY know). Nobody can blame him this season and we've had a full off-season to experiment with different halves.
- Building on the above... Walker and Suaalii could debut. I'm sure they'll have a lot of lessons to learn before they're top notch first graders but I have no doubt they'll provide an x-factor (something we lacked in 2020). Put simply, most punters would agree that they're the two best 'yet to debut' players in the comp. It's not a matter of whether, but WHEN they will hit their straps in 1st grade. I suspect sooner rather than later with Robbo as coach and all the talent we've got to support them around the park.
- Cam Smith's been given his fukking retirement premiership that he kept begging for. While he can't make up his goddamn mind about whether he's leaving the Drizzle... he'll do that eventually (maybe this year), Bellamy will move on (after one or two ordinary seasons without Smith & JAC), Wayne will retire and we won't have these stupid 'super coaches' getting preferential treatment all the time. IMO this will be better for the game. Although, I know the 'Melbourne Project' is still ongoing. I hope it can find some proper management that sets up Victorian feeder clubs (Melbourne's apparently gonna be bigger than Sydney in a year or so and yet they have to use QLD juniors!), poach a few AFL stars to give them some CHARACTER (IMO CHARACTER is more important than winning if you wanna build fans) and other clubs won't have to concede wins/premierships just to give the Mexican Cartel a leg up every time.

[ccfc bondi]

My biggest fear is Souths winning it

Seriously, if we had their squad there would be lots of 'rorters' accusations! And they keep adding to it!

[Steakface]

I've always thought our secret weapon over the past 3 years has been something never really mentioned - team comraderie and 'the vibe'.

From footage ive seen, based on how long club veterans hang around (on and off the field), from the body language, the on-field interactions....the Roosters are a team who are very tight and have a great relationship with each other. Certainly more so than almost any team i've seen in the comp.

This is a MASSIVELY underrated component to getting everything to click on the field. Anyone who has played team sport at a highly competitive level knows this, but rarely given the emphasis it deserves.

[King Salvo]

More good news, the holidays are over. Everyone is back on deck Monday.

People where they can are strongly encouraged to still continue working from home - this is the message we received from our Chief People Officer in the NSW Department of Education and a NSW Health directive.

I don't go back to the 27/1/2021 in any case and i will be working full time from home in any case as many will be in corporate/operations and only attending the office when required under agile working with advanced notice.

[redwhiteblue]

People where they can are strongly encouraged to still continue working from home - this is the message we received from our Chief People Officer in the NSW Department of Education and a NSW Health directive.

I don't go back to the 27/1/2021 in any case and i will be working full time from home in any case as many will be in corporate/operations and only attending the office when required under agile working with advanced notice.

I restart work on Monday and had my contract with the bank extended until 30 April but we won't ever go into head office either and still work from home. Our immediate manager is in Brisbane anyway so it makes no sense for us to ever go into Barangaroo. The Rose Bay ferry doesn't go directly there anymore anyway, Not enough of us commuting anymore to justify having that service.

I like the fact that I start work again at the same time as the Roosters. . Time to get motivated. Happy 2021 everybody..remember this too shall pass..

[Vasco]

I’m confidently pessimistic but happy none the less.
you won’t ever see me bag Robbo again but he might cop it here a bit this year

it’s not just the tactics that we need to change in my opinion.
we had a successful team based on their ability to defend against structured attack. We were the best at it.

you can’t coach older defensive experts to suddenly become attacking weapons. Especially the Morris boys.
Manu was poor backend, he has to liven right up.
Teddy is the best attacking gun in the game.
Keary is v v good but needs support from the forwards gaining assertion so he can run sideways to put the D in two minds.....his half partner must also be good enough to warrant defensive pressure.
the wingers.......Toops another year older as well.
Dads army will struggle against speedy youth with good halves

100% on Manu. Get involved son!

[Thirteen]

100% on Manu. Get involved son!

In fairness to Manu he did have the slowest half in living memory inside of him all season.