The alarm bells are ringing for the Roosters after a 48-4 defeat at the hands of the Panthers on Friday night, with the play of captain James Tedesco coming under question.
Arguably possessing one of the best rosters in the competition, the Tricolours have lost four of their past six games, averaging a meagre 11.66 points a game in that span and now sit outside the top eight.
The Roosters and Australian captain has consistently been one of the standout players in the league over the past six or seven seasons, but clearly hasn’t been close to replicating his best in 2023.
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Veteran journalist Brent Read says that the Roosters had to appear for a last-minute Saturday morning training session on the back of their disappointing loss.
“Apparently they have been called in this morning, that’s what I’ve been told. You can understand why after how they played last night,” Read said on Triple M.
After a solid first 20 minutes against the defending champions, the Roosters were unable to provide an answer to the Panthers from there on in, doing what they pleased, scoring eight tries to one.
While the microscope can be placed on a number of underperforming Roosters, Tedesco deserves his share of the blame according to Read.
“They have so many players who aren’t playing well but the one that has gone under the radar a little bit is James Tedesco,” Read said.
“I must say he’s set such a high bar for himself, but I don’t think Teddy has been playing like the Teddy we know and (State of) Origin is around the corner as well.
“It’s hard to find a player in that team who’s actually playing to their standard at the moment. Maybe Lindsay Collins, maybe.”
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Roosters coach Trent Robinson said his side got “an incredible lesson” in his post-match press conference, placing the blame on himself.
“You can talk about attack and defence but you can talk about getting the team ready to play and ready to compete and I haven’t done that in the last two weeks,” Robinson said.
“We got bitten pretty hard tonight so that’s on me so I have to make sure I get that right and turn it around pretty quickly.”
Read was also perplexed, stating a loss like that is “unheard of” for a Robinson-coached outfit and that the team’s new combinations aren’t “meshing”.
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“It’s very un-Roosters like the way they are playing at the moment,” Read said.
“They’ve obviously had a training session or meeting this morning so obviously they are doing some soul-searching at the moment.
“Many expected them to win the comp this season because of players they bought in like Brandon Smith but the chemistry doesn’t seem to have worked.
“Brandon hasn’t seemed to mesh with some of those other players.”
Robinson made a shock switch to his halves a month ago when he dropped halfback Sam Walker, instead preferring usual centre Joey Manu and Luke Keary as his halves pairing.
Walker is now expected to miss a few weeks due to a knee injury but there will be many in Bondi clamouring for his return when he’s healthy if the Roosters can’t turn things around in the interim.