Unacceptable reality hanging over the head of the Sydney Roosters

The Sydney Roosters have been called out for an ‘unacceptable’ issue despite resurrecting their 2023 season in miraculous circumstances.

A disappointing Cornetto cannot be saved by its delicious chocolate tip, and nor should we accept the same for the Roosters.

The injury-hit juggernaut’s season ended on Friday night at the hands of Melbourne, with praise flowing since for the club’s efforts to revive a dead season and an even more dead squad.

However, anyone who thinks the Chooks ‘fairytale’ run was enough to earn a pass mark for 2023 should open their eyes to be blinded by the reflection of their payroll.

In simple terms, a designer club like this can’t allow a wet sail to mask a season that was mostly paltry poultry.

Beginning the year as premiership favourites, Trent Robinson’s men should’ve been nibbling Penrith’s earlobes in the top four instead of benefiting from precipitous results and Cronulla.

Even despite their six-game winning streak and its piece de resistance – the cancellation of Souths – it means this Roosters season was, by their own gilded standards, a total lemon.

To his credit, Robinson admirably admitted this on Friday night, conceding you can’t dress a muttony season as lamb simply by “pumping up the end.”

However, when the premierships dry up like they have, chairman Nick Politis doesn’t do ‘admirable’ quite like he ‘does’ coaching careers.

Admittedly, to bare his teeth after stumbling two wins short of a Grand Final would be rich man angst at its finest.

But ever the uber-ambitious doyen, Politis will be feeling every inch of his club’s harrowing four-year drought, not to mention the unacceptable famine against top four sides that underpins it.

After losing eight straight to Penrith and beating Melbourne only once since Cooper Cronk retired, the Roosters have joined Peter Sterling in writing-off Grand Final day for golf rather than silverware.

Undoubtedly, the Bondi club has endured its fair share of distractions this year with Angus Crichton’s health battles, the Joseph Sua’ali’i rugby defection, plus the Jason Ryles dalliance with the Dragons which ended in his even more shameful defection to rugby.

But as a group of professionals living adjacent to sparkling beaches and the Golden Sheaf, distractions for this organisation are nothing new.

At the end of the day, this is an opulent playing squad teeming with household names funded by a salary cap that can be seen from the moon.

They should be challenging for minor premierships, not meagre ticketing allocations for elimination finals at Shark Park.

Considering Politis’ impatience and his title drought, this late season surge will be viewed clinically as a 23 per cent spike in a flatlining season, a return nowhere near enough to guarantee Robinson a softening-up period in 2024.

With a squad boasting a slew of Origin players and the impending arrival of Dom Young and Spencer Leniu, plus the emergence of Sandon Smith, Terrell May and Siua Wong – Robinson’s feckless starts and episodic dog days can no longer be explained away by pointing to his rings and wobbling his head Fatman-style.

The three-time premier will also have to make up ground for his bizarre decision to drop Sam Walker, with many still confused how a lack of fluency can be blamed on a kid who’s 68 per cent peach fuzz.

Finally, Robinson will also need to explain how he’s become the antithesis of Roosters culture.

Much like the devastation of his injury-hit covid-affected 2021 when he overachieved with a squad of semi-pro North Sydney Bears, this recent run of form has reinforced his recent habit where the worse the players available, the better he coaches.

At least if it all goes to water, he’s a perfect fit for the NSW job.