Spare a thought for Roosters fans

Spare a thought for their fans because..? The fans did nothing. Spare a thought for the players first and foremost. It was their premiership. Not the premiership of the empty stadium they play in front of every week. It's also not "unfair" for rival fans to highlight the caveats in the premiership final as well. The refereeing decisions against Canberra were really poor and it's perfectly valid to bring them up because without them the complexion of the game would have been entirely different. To complain otherwise comes off as insecure. This article drips of a Sydney fan trying desperately recover some sympathy. You aren't the underdog. You have the success. You have the money. Neutrals won't support you. That's life. You should support your club because you love the club, not because it makes you feel good when others like it. If it bothers you, go support Canberra.

As you see anyone can make stats suit an argument. You can do the same with almost any team and get the same results. Take away magic round, traditional rivals teams that take home games away and it looks average for a lot of teams. Take out Good Friday matches at the Easter show and watch crowd averages drop.

Not sure what point, if any, you are making. Magic Round was in Brisbane with all teams playing so you can't really count that as a home game, same with the game in Adelaide which drew 16k. The Anzac Day game draws a big crowd but I doubt with that game and the rest, you get an average crowd of 17k. In fact no home game outside of magic Round, Anzac Day, Adelaide home game and Souths in round 1 cracked 15k. I'm just saying you need to put stats into context instead of blindly accepting them.

Maybe you could take out all the games at home that went over 10k to suit your argument. If you like facts you should have fun with these, Saints -7 games under 10k,3 of which were under 8k Manly - 6 games under 10k,1 under 8k Bulldogs -5 under 10k,3 under 8k Souths -2 under 10k sharks -2 under 8k This figure rises sharply if you look at teams under 11k and doesn't count teams like Gold coast, Penrith, tigers and The Warriors. Should all teams with a traditional rivalry not count those games. Should South's not count the return match or the game they play in WA ?

That crowd figure is inflated by the Anzac Day game which always attracts a big crowd, mostly Dragons fans, and home games in Adelaide and during Magic Round. Outside of that only their season opener vs Souths attracted a crowd above their season average. In fact three of their home games attracted less than 10k

I'm a Dragons fan, I buy bulk loads of tissues from Costco

Pretty sure Canberra only had 2 local juniors in there side GF day and the average of fans this year at home (17,251) was only 2nd to Parr(18,396) . As much as I dislike some clubs I don't let blind hatred stop me from seeing the truth. We can all bag clubs on how we feel about them , like for say Souths with all those premierships still known as scabs by old Tiger fans for agreeing not to turn up for a Grand Final but snuck in the gate and kicked off to no-one and claimed that as a win and still count it on their tally, or the dogs of war wearing fiberglass shoulder pads to blatantly hurt other players and their endless off field dramas that dragged the game down. Yes the roosters are just there and have been just there with Souths since the inception of the game in Australia and I'm pretty sure both sides will be there for a long time.

A decade of Dogs of War plus Dragons 11 years are great achievements. But the game's been going for 111 years, so you need more than that! The chooks have played 30 of those GFs and have had multiple up and down eras. Dally M drove the formation of the code, Dave Brown was a points scoring machine in a successful 30s team. Big Artie captained back-to-back premierships with the team holding the record for most wins on the trot (19). All were Aus captains (amongst a few others) and immortals. Greatest ever coach in Jack Gibson. Freddy, Minichiello, and Teddy the best in the world at their peak. Freddy and the 90s chooks helped drive the fight against News Corp SuperLeague. As for the argument of others 'team of stars gets less glory'? Garbage. The following teams were stacked with stars: 50-60s Dragons, late 60s Bunnies, 80s Eels, 80s Dogs, 90s Raiders, 90s Broncs, 00s Storm. If being stacked w Stars matters so much more than coaching, tactics and effort then why did the All Blacks lose then England lose the final? Why did the Roos lose to Tonga? Could name dozens-hundreds of examples. A good team is a prerequisite, but the challenge happens after that. And the smarts, effort and discipline make the stars, too. Cheers

Good article ...Easts fans can feel proud of their team’s achievements after the horrible 80s and 90s. Don’t forget your team stank horridly then so savour the back to back wins as they are well deserved. You can also thank Nick Politis for putting spirit and value into the jersey after years of neglect by Ron Jones at the helm who only cared about the leagues club making money and not the football club. During those years in limbo Easts also lost territory to Souffs who won’t give it back. Clubs need good managers such as Politis, he’s been terrific for the game and for the chooks.

Tissue ?

Embrace the hate !

Well the slogan that used be plastered around the SFS was "we play for premierships" so even the club told us not to care prior to that. Regular season is for plebs

They have no juniors. They have access to better third party deals creating an unfair advantage. Their fans are non existent, and only come out of the woodwork during finals. They have no culture or history about them, like Souths with most premierships, or St George with 11 in a row, or the Dogs of War, they are just there. There isn’t anything memorable about the club. Too much success over the last 20 years to feel sorry for their fans. Not really sure what you were hoping for with this article unless it was just clickbait. I’ll feel sorry for the fans of every other club before I feel sorry for Roosters fans

To Be fair, it only seems to be on Social Media that people carry on about the raiders being robbed. I live in rural NSW and talk footy with a lot of people through work (im in sales) and colleagues and any one who knows anything about how to play RL accepts it was a blu by the ref but those calls went both ways and the better team won.

The lovely thing about the Roar is, it gives people a chance to vent and I have to say Lamington, this is one of the more polite vents I've read. I'm anything but a Roosters fan, but it took two teams to participate in a terrific game of football, where the Roosters defended brilliantly for such long periods, then broke the game wide open with a brilliant try. Sure the focus has been on refereeing and Canberra's "almost" fairytale, because that sells papers or garners views on the internet, but at the end of the day - who cares? I looked up the results for NRL grand final wins and there it was, the Roosters in 2019.

Hang on..."fans"? Surely you meant the singular?

As a long serving East's fan who lived through the 80's-90's drought this was some time coming. I am happy to let the jealous one's have their say as one day the wheels may turn again. This celebrating is an art in itself (hangovers last longer) and I am happy to stay off the rooftops these days. I guess if East's don't win next year all the other teams will be salary cap, ref loved cheats...that's how it works...

"Spare a thought for Roosters fans" :laughing:

I have been following the chooks since I met Kerry Boustead in Bondi Junction as a 5 year old and my Bulldog supporting godfather sledged me during the 1980 GF. Kevin Hastings, Hugh McGahan, David Trewhella, Craig Salvatori, Rod Silva were my heroes as we lurched between the dizzying heights of 6th place finishes and gallantly avoiding the spoon from 83 to 95. Not overly fussed by what people say about the GF win this year, it was a great achievement. Yes, there was a little bit of good fortune but it's not as if every side doesn't benefit from that every now and again. Yes, they buy some talent but they also let a great deal of talent go. They have built a great squad and team culture in recent years and deserve all the success they are enjoying. Butcher, Mitchell, Manu, Radley, Verrills, Tupouniua just some of the guys that are developing into class footballers at the Chooks. Anyway, no one likes us we don't care.

Bold article Mate. You're not going to get much love from this crowd. I'll empathize though. I have a good mate who's Mt Druit b&b but a life long Roosters fan and member even when living in Qld. He's a tradie and far from the latte set but as passionate as footy fan as anyone. Silly buggar even went and got the Roosers 2019 emblem embossed in his new truck seats after the GF. It takes all types and we all have our own reasons for following our team far beyond geographic convenience. Don't be a shamed of their success. Yes, we have a tall poppy syndrome but it is much harder to build something successful then scrape in occasionally and become a 'feel good' story.