Upside down Roosters in finals contention

 

Roar Rookie

By Roosterman, 22 Mar 2010 Roosterman is a Roar Rookie

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 Mitchell Pearce, NRL, Rugby League, Sydney Roosters

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You’d be forgiven for thinking someone is playing a cruel joke on the Roosters; that they’ve tipped the competition table upside down so that they appear to be on top.

And unless the Roosters improve on yesterday’s effort and learn to go on with a win, that cruel joke could very well become a reality.

Don’t get me wrong – they did enough when it counted to assume the match was over with twenty minutes left on the clock. But in an age where teams play for eighty minutes and enjoy chasing points, it can be disastrous for any team to become complacent and put the queue in the rack when enjoying a healthy lead.

The Roosters are a far different team so far this year to that which suffered one of its most humiliating season’s in the club’s history in 2009. For a start, they look fitter, and with fitness comes endurance and improved confidence levels.

They’re taking chances this year, whereas last year they were stagnant and cumbersome in attack. They look sharp and they seem capable of anything when they are in possession.

But the biggest difference this year seems to be the belief they have in themselves and the way they play for each other.

So after two rounds they sit atop the competition table, having amassed an impressive eighty points already. But the test for Brian Smith now is to get them right defensively – they’ve conceded 42 points – if they are going to compete with the high-scoring teams such as the Dragons and Storm.

One thing’s for sure, though: after only 2 rounds the Roosters have already exceeded any of the expectations most experts had of them. Phil Gould predicted they’d finish 14th this year and had no hesitation in tipping the Tigers to beat them comfortably yesterday. Greg Alexander’s pre-season summary of them was just as gloomy, if not worse. Gould, incidentally, predicted a 4th place finish for the Tigers and 8th place for the Rabbitohs.

If you listen to any of the experts – the ones who like the sound of their own voices – they’ll tell you that this is a rebuilding year for the Roosters and that success is another season or two away.

Although I respect that they’re entitled to their opinions, I respectfully disagree – I see the Roosters and Brian Smith as impatient. The rebuilding took place in the off-season and they’re hungry for success sooner, as opposed to later.

Like I said, it’s early days and the road to redemption is long and difficult, but if the old adage that you’re only as good as your last game bears any truth, then someone ought to whisper those very words to the Roosters each time they win, because so far it’s working for them.

So as long as they can improve on their defensive lapses at the back end of the second half, then I see no reason why the Roosters can’t make a go of things this year and vie for a finals berth. Stranger things have happened.

To do that, though, they need to maintain the passion throughout the season – a disease Mitchell Pearce seems to have contracted somewhere along the way and one which he will, hopefully, infect the entire team with.

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