Current as in 2017 or 2018?
The 2017 roster was never going to do it, they were missing someone who could grab the game by the balls and make the victory happen. Closest they had is Latrell and he's about 6 years old.
2018, with Tedesco, they are a better shot but I genuinely think they are missing a no-nonsense forward leader. Guys like JWH and Napa talk a big game and look ok on the highlights real, but when the fight is brought to them they crumble. Sam Moa provided this for them in 2013 and they havent really replaced it. At the moment, all their forwards are too busy believing their own hype.
Agree 100%. The Roosters are a mentally weak team. Outside of Cordner, they have no leaders who will roll up the sleeves when a game isn't going the way they trained for it and say "follow me, ill get us out of this". They live for the highlight reel and flashy individual play which gets them through on occasion. They can blow a team away in the first 20 of a game on their day but it doesn't take much more than scoring first or clawing back a small deficit to completely unsettle them.
I won't speak for other Cows fans but out of this whole finals series so far, this prelim was the least worried i felt going into a game. I knew the Sharks were going to be extremely tough and gritty and probably wouldn't go away all game - they didn't, Cows had to work so hard just to stay in that fight with them and if it wasn't for a couple of bone head plays at key moments, we wouldn't have made it past this game.
The Eels played their Grand Final in week 1 and thought they were going a lot better than they actually were because they
only just lost to the Storm (despite scoring while the Storm were down a man). They had a real "Dude, i almost had you" from The Fast & The Furious feel about them and it was clear they had been reading their own papers all week.
Which brings me back to the Roosters, the textbook example of a mentally weak team built on a foundation of arrogance and entitlement. You could see it all week leading up to the game that these blokes weren't paying their opposition the respect they should of a prelim finals opponent. They had one eye on the Storm already and it cost them dearly, and predictably.
With Tedesco coming next year they will add some strike, but until they overhaul that forward pack (Cordner excepted) and lose their Homer Simpson halfback, nothing will change.
