In fifth on the ladder, we find the formerly Eastern Suburbs and currently Sydney Roosters. A more than respectable 16-8 season was paired with a +141 points difference, which was noticeably better than their 14.8 Pythagorean wins would have suggested. Their defence, leaking 489 points, was worse than any other in the top six bar the historically bad Manly and their offence was nearly 200 points behind that of the Storm.

The Victory Lap

From the pre-season deep dive:

Still, people will overreact to that and the Roosters lack of a halfback. They’ll probably not consider how good the rest of the roster will be, especially once Victor Radley returns and adds his value, and that teams have won premierships with lesser combinations than Luke Keary and a question mark. It turns out that question mark could be the son of a former footballer, either that of Aidrian Lam or Ben Walker, who will probably demonstrate that he can do enough to keep the team in the running. After all, this franchise won a grand final with a halfback who had a broken shoulder. I’m sure a borderline rookie can be built up to the task.

People who believe the lack of halfback is a death sentence have no faith in Trent Robinson, despite the evidence of the last few seasons. The Roosters may not be prime premiership material, like they were in 2019, but they’re at worst in tier 1b of potential winners. Just look at their engine. They’ll be fine.

What happened

Here’s the Roosters line-up from round 1, a 46-4 victory over Manly, and the line-up from week 2 of the finals, a 42-6 loss to Manly.

I don’t know if the season needs much more analysis than that. Not pictured are the retirement of Boyd Cordner, who was expected to return in 2021 and didn’t, the emergence and subsequent injury to Sam Walker and injuries to another bunch of replacement-level depth players. Trent Robinson did about as well as could be expected under the circumstances to get as far as he did with the North Sydney Bears and the ghosts of the Sydney Roosters.

There’s always next year

I think the funniest moment of the season was when hot shot future star Sam Walker spent a few weeks throwing cut out passes for easy tries, got found out by the Brisbane Broncos in round 11 and got absolutely pasted for it. He’ll be better for that spiritual dacking, which is a concerning prospect for the rest of the competition. The Roosters have:

• One of the three best coaches in the game (added 179 class Elo rating points during his tenure)
• One top shelf half (.131 since joining the Roosters) and the sport’s best prospect (.124 in 2021) occupying the other half position
• The best fullback over the last five years and likely one of the best ever (12.1 career WARG)
• A forward pack that has minced every team in the league at least once
• A recent record of winning premierships (2018 and 2019)

Despite losing three club veterans in the space of twelve months, with the other Morris joining them in the off-season, it’s hard to think of another club – other than the Melbourne Storm – that’s better poised than the Sydney Roosters for a serious tilt at 2022’s premiership.