Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson expressed confidence that his team will eventually overcome their struggles against top-tier teams like the Melbourne Storm and Penrith Panthers. After a 24-8 defeat in Melbourne on Saturday evening, the Roosters’ record shows they have lost 18 out of their last 19 encounters with these leading NRL sides over the past five years.
Robinson dismissed the notion that mental barriers were behind his team’s difficulties in these matchups, emphasizing that they have had close games in the past. “It’s pretty simple, we need to improve there. Obviously, it has been pretty close the last couple of games there. There was a kick in it in the semi-final. We have to get over it, no use dwelling on it. There is still some footy to be played. It’s up to us to get over that,” Robinson remarked.
He insisted that the issue is not psychological, suggesting that perseverance and improvement will eventually yield better results. “There isn’t a psychology around that when we play them, it’s just… The time will come,” he added.
Saturday’s game, marked by three sin bins, was characterized by Robinson as disjointed and lacking flow. “We got outworked at the start of the game. You could see they were tackling really well, and our starting crew just couldn’t make the inroads that we wanted to make. It ended up being a bit of a messy game. They are obviously very good on last tackled, and they got through their sets, made some line breaks early and competed on the end of sets,” Robinson explained.
The interruptions from sin bins and head injury assessments contributed to the stop-start nature of the match. Robinson noted, “It ended up, with sin bins and HIAs, being quite a stop-start game. There was no rhythm to it. We had opportunities in the second half, I feel like we were coming back to sort of attack them, but we couldn’t execute enough, they had some good try-savers and that was about it.”
This defeat places the Roosters in a precarious position, holding onto their top-four spot by a mere two points ahead of the Canterbury Bulldogs, Dolphins, and St George Illawarra Dragons. Despite the setback, Robinson’s outlook remains positive, focusing on the need for improvement and the belief that their breakthrough against these top teams will eventually come.
