Where will the Sydney Roosters finish in 2019?

[The Book of Steeden]

How will we survive without big papa?

Who will give away our penalties now when Waerea-Hargreaves is off the field?

 

[Parkway_Drive]

Good to see 3 of the votes have come from Souffs supporters.....

 

[Parkway_Drive]

Lol you're good value, Froggy.

Yeah we really should have finished 5th-8th this year; as evidenced by our Minor Premiership, league's best defence, and demolition of the Storm in the GF.

Oh that and having the games best fullback, 3/4 line, halves, and forward pack.

Yep, 5th-8th was our real spot and we were just lucky.

Tommy I reckon we were lucky we made the 8....

 

[Parkway_Drive]

When Ryan Hall is fit he will carve up the NRL. I expect him to force Daniel Tupou out of the team.

No he won't...

 

[Vic Mackey]

Hard to imagine them not being top 4 again. Obviously every premier has a lot of luck and the Roosters rode theirs last year. I can’t remember any player missing more then 2 or 3 games which was great cause looking outside their top 17 there’s barely a capable first grader in sight.

I don’t think they’ll win the comp, not because they’re not goood enough, but because if cheating Melbourne Storm teams couldn’t do it I doubt this team can. It only takes a 5% drop in motivation for another team to over take you. I’ll say 2nd/3rd and Prelim finalists.

 

[Tommy Smith]

Hard to imagine them not being top 4 again. Obviously every premier has a lot of luck and the Roosters rode theirs last year. I can’t remember any player missing more then 2 or 3 games which was great cause looking outside their top 17 there’s barely a capable first grader in sight.

It was very lucky to have our star halfback and organiser bust his shoulder before half time in the Prelim.

It was also very fortunate to be missing arguably our best player in Latrell Mitchell for that prelim against a full strength Souths team.

And lucky again to play with virtually 16 in the GF to overcome a full strength Storm team.

I take your point that you need some measure of luck with injuries to win a comp. It's a prerequisite. That luck deserted us in 2015 and probably cost us a comp so I was happy to see it mostly go our way in 2018.

That being said, we overcame more adversity than most Premiers (think Cronulla, Cowboys and Storm recently who barely had an injury all year). And we did so because come finals time we were unstoppable and even the loss of Mitchell and injury to Cronk couldn't derail us.

One of those barely capable replacements in Momirovski came in and did a brilliant job defensively in that Prelim. We were just so switched on.

Also, those other "barely capable" first graders like Nat Butcher, Lindsay Collins, Poasa Faamausuli - and soon Egan Butcher and Josh Curran - when they soon become excellent first graders please don't then use them in some sort of "cap cheats" argument given that you think they're barely capable

 

[Vic Mackey]

It was very lucky to have our star halfback and organiser bust his shoulder before half time in the Prelim.

It was also very fortunate to be missing arguably our best player in Latrell Mitchell for that prelim against a full strength Souths team.

And lucky again to play with virtually 16 in the GF to overcome a full strength Storm team.

I take your point that you need some measure of luck with injuries to win a comp. It's a prerequisite. That luck deserted us in 2015 and probably cost us a comp so I was happy to see it mostly go our way in 2018.

That being said, we overcame more adversity than most Premiers (think Cronulla, Cowboys and Storm recently who barely had an injury all year). And we did so because come finals time we were unstoppable and even the loss of Mitchell and injury to Cronk couldn't derail us.

One of those barely capable replacements in Momirovski came in and did a brilliant job defensively in that Prelim. We were just so switched on.

Also, those other "barely capable" first graders like Nat Butcher, Lindsay Collins, Poasa Faamausuli - and soon Egan Butcher and Josh Curran - when they soon become excellent first graders please don't then use them in some sort of "cap cheats" argument given that you think they're barely capable

Well you’re proving my point when you have to use 1 player getting injured but doesn’t even miss a game, and then a guy missing one game through suspension as examples.

In 2005 Hodgson, Benji, Prince and Farah missed one game combined all year. That went a huge way to us winning the comp. Then in 2010 we entered the finals series missing 4 of our regular 17 which cost us any shot.

Those guys you mention might end up being world beaters, I admit I haven’t seen them play apart from a nsw Cup game here and there. When you look at the semi final Wyong team on paper there was maybe 1 or 2 guys who’s played more then a couple of first grade games. However if a few of them had to have played 6-8 games instead of your regulars the year could have ended differently.

It’s not a criticism of your year, merely an observation. You were deserved Premiers.