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Brandon Smith has had a rough old start to his Roosters career. He copped one of the hits of the year off former Melbourne teammate Felise Kaufusi in Round 1’s dispiriting defeat to the Dolphins, causing major rib pain, and though he returned to play in Round 2 against the Warriors, he left early with a muscular complaint in his back.
The Kiwi hooker was a major doubt for the biggest game of his nascent Chooks career, with muscle problems notoriously harder to fix than impact injuries.
Yet he rose from his sick bed to inspire the side to a 20-18 win over Souths: they trailed 10-0 when he and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves entered, with the Cheese producing his first try in Tricolours to kickstart the comeback.
“If it wasn’t the Bunnies I probably wouldn’t have played, this was a game I wanted to be a part of,” said the hooker.
“I took a record amount of anti-inflammatories to keep me out there, thank the Lord for Naprosyn. I did everything I could to get out there and we knew we had the week off and the physio said it would hurt but I couldn’t do any more damage. He gave me the green light to push through a little bit of pain.
“The injury from my second game was probably related to that second incident. Bloody Felise, I hate him. I’ve been cheeky to him for seven years of my career and he finally got some payback.
“It’d been quite a disappointing start to my career at the Roosters but today was a big step for me, just getting through a game. The body feels alright, the back’s still a bit sore, but just getting through a game and getting that confidence – I’m still building with this team, I still have a lot of improvement to go.”
Smith knew that the game, coming fresh off the back of the seven sin bin fixture last September, would be a fiery one, and was put in his place earlier in the week by Trent Robinson regarding the seriousness of the rivalry.
“It was almost in comparison to a grand final,” said Smith. “I’ve only been in two but the energy and the build-up towards it all – it wasn’t too much of a build-up from Robbo – but it was awesome.
“I don’t really read the paper too often to be honest, so I didn’t really see anything during the week but it’s kind of an unwritten thing, an unspoken thing.
“I’ve come into the club and everyone is just a little bit more focused than usual, a little bit more antsy than usual. Robbo yelled at me at the start of the week, so it must be a Rabbitohs game. It’s awesome we got the win, we were down 10-0 when I came on and we never lost our belief.”
Smith said he knew that he and Jared could change the game from the bench, but was a surprised as everyone else when JWH played peacemaker when things inevitably got tasty late in the second half.
“He changed the whole attack,” said the Cheese of his teammate. “He said ‘I’m going through these guys’ and everyone jumped on the back of that. Without Jared today we wouldn’t have won the game.
“I’ve had the privilege of rooming with Jazza every tour we’ve been on, so I know what he’s about and I know what he brings.
“But this game here was something new, his mentality toward controlled aggression, the way he spoke to the team out on the field when the scuffles were going on and how he stayed composed – I was quite proud of him, I know that’s something he’s been working on.
“We don’t want Jared playing one week on and three weeks off, we want him all the way through the season and I thought he took a big step towards that controlled aggression without being soft.
“In that scuffle he grabbed a few of the boys and said ‘it’s all good, it’s all good, keep calm’ and he was telling us to control our emotions.
“He spoke about discipline at the beginning of the game and I said ‘are these words coming out of your mouth?’. Outstanding! He didn’t look too old out there, he’s looking a lot younger than the other front-rowers.”
“I made a career of sitting on the bench and coming on when everyone was tired, so it wasn’t new to me, I literally made a career of it at the Storm.
“I came on and you saw when I came on there was a lot of tired bodies and I got rewards for all the work Jake Turpin did, if you look at the first half all they did was tackle the whole time. It’s not something I want to get used to, I wanted to be a starting number nine but the coach gives you a role you have to play it.”
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Smith was delighted to get over the stripe for the first time, so it was understandable that his trademark carry on got going early.
“That 60-metre runaway?” joked the Kiwi. “Where I broke through six tackles? No, it was good, when I came on everyone was a bit more tired, we did a bit of video on the markers throughout the week, I’m just lucky everything worked out to plan.
“If Sam Walker didn’t push through the line Lachlan Ilias wouldn’t have fell for the dummy, so I have to thank him for that. Or was it Luke Keary? I can’t remember, I was too busy feeling the wind in the back of my hair, too busy flying at Usain Bolt speed.
“I was afraid of Latrell so at the end of the try I really tucked the ball with two hands, I saw Latrell had a big trysaver last week so I wasn’t letting him take that one from me.”