The Sydney Roosters have shown no signs of consistency in 2023, and with their 18-16 loss to the Manly Sea Eagles on Sunday, coach Trent Robinson is beginning to lay blame outside of his team.
While he praised his side for a "really strong" effort, Robinson took aim at a lopsided penalty count and began pointing fingers at the match officials.
โWe weren't going to get anything, you could see there wasn't going to be any call or assistance there. I think it was 6-0 penalty count in the second half so we were going to just spend time on our goal line defending,โ Robinson said during his post-match press conference.
Continuing his criticism of the officiating Robinson then questioned a forward pass ruling against his side and an incorrect-play-the-ball by Daly Cherry-Evans that lead to a try.
โBen (Cummins) called it from a poor angle and called it forward but the touch judge that was right in line didn't call it," Robinson said.
"We had a ball-plant from Cherry-Evans that led to them scoring a try. They changed the rule at the start of the year.
"6-0 in a second half plus those calls, you know, that's why I felt like we were awesome."
While it may have been another concerning loss from the tricolours, the coach remains confident his side can be a competition threat with the help of a bye next week to recover from a tough mid-section of the season.
Hoping to welcome back several key players in round 20 Robinson will need to put plenty of though into his next team sheet.
Egan Butcher, Billy Smith, Brandon Smith, Joseph Suaalii, Sam Walker and Connor Watson are all set to be available for the Roosters next match against the Storm.
I hate the roosters but that was a great game of footy and they really dug deep in defense in that second half. Great effort from Manly too showing life without Turbo is possible.
As for the bottom three teams including my beloved dragons, they were an embarrassment to their jerseys and the NRL must be so proud of the broken system they have.