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Opinion
James Tedesco is no longer the No.1 fullback in the NRL but he was the best player on the field by a mile in his 250th NRL game on Saturday night as he led the Roosters to a rousing 40-16 semi-final smash-up of the Sea Eagles.
The Roosters won by a knockout after Manly had two players sent to the canvas in the opening minute but now face the mammoth task of heading to Melbourne next Friday to bring down the Storm.
Trent Robinson has been bullish about his team’s chances to shock the NRL world despite the season-ending injuries suffered by Sam Walker and Brandon Smith.
And that faith was justified as they dismantled Manly to extend the tenures of Super League-bound duo Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Luke Keary and rugby concerts Joseph Manu and Joseph Suaalii.
The Roosters are sick of hearing about who’s out injured and want the focus to be on who’s on the field.
In this kind of form they are not without a hope against the Storm in Melbourne next Friday night.
Despite Sam Walker and Brandon Smith watching on from the sidelines with their serious knee injuries, the Roosters ran rampant at Allianz Stadium to keep their title hopes alive after their first-up flogging from the Panthers.
Now there’s the small matter of their woeful record against Penrith and the Storm to take into account before their fans get too optimistic about their next assignment.
But if you look at the Tricolour glass as being half full, every loss brings them closer to reversing their collective misery which has resulted in defeat in 20 of their past 21 encounters.
“We’re not going to be doing cartwheels tonight and sprouting who we are. We need to make that next week,” he said.
“So I’m really proud of the way they handled (4:14) the week. Really proud of what we did.But we need to go and do it again next week.
“Melbourne are there for a reason. There’s all respect to them. We need to take a breath and then we need to get ready to go up a gear again. That’s in our game already. So, it’s not about planning that. It’s about creating a platform that’s going to offer those opportunities.”
And with Tedesco in the kind of form which has him a chance to win the Dally M Medal and retain his Kangaroos jersey, anything is possible even if it’s not probable.
He has developed into one of the game’s best leaders after initially being a reluctant skipper and there is no doubt this Roosters side has enormous belief.
Andrew Johns on Nine commentary said that with doubts about Dylan Edwards’ knee injury amid talk that Penrith’s NSW fullback might need off-season surgery, he believes Tedesco is doing enough to keep Kalyn Ponga away from the green and gold No.1 jersey.
The Sea Eagles did well to advance to the second week of the finals by beating the Bulldogs but they looked as flat as a tack against the Roosters.
After qualifying for the finals in seventh, they have in some ways over-achieved but overall it’s a season of what-ifs.
And as per usual that main question revolves around what might have been if Tom Trbojevic had some better injury luck.
He was still not quite at his best due to the shoulder injury he carried into the playoffs.
Trbojevic was brave as he played through the pain with the help of a few injections but Manly’s only chance of going deep into a finals series is if their star fullback is firing on all cylinders and sadly, yet again, that was not the case.
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Two plays into the match and two Sea Eagles were being treated for head knocks.
Tolu Koula came off second best after trying to bring down Jared Waerea-Hargreaves from the kick-off and then Jake Trbojevic was floored from the next hit-up by Lindsay Collins.
Koula was ruled out for the rest of the match with a category-one concussion while Trbojevic was able to pass his test to re-enter the fray.
However the double blow inside the opening 20 seconds played havoc with Seibold’s plans and made an already tough task for the underdog Sea Eagles into an extremely difficult one.
“The start was a little bit surreal, losing Tolo and Jake in the first two tackles of the game, but that was the cards we were dealt,” the coach mused.
“We didn’t get a six-again for the entire night, so there was a fair bit of liberty taken in the tackles, and they did a good job. The referees are a little bit different to the regular season, which is OK. You’ve got to try and adapt and handle that, (2:44) but I think they adapted to that better than us tonight.
James Tedesco celebrates with teammates. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)
The Roosters converted their early advantage on the back of Manly’s mishaps into a 6-0 lead when lock Victor Radley raced over in the 12th minute of his early comeback from a fractured scapula.
A James Tedesco interchange of passing with Daniel Tupou showed up some lethargic defence from Reuben Garrick as the Roosters skipped out to a 14-0 buffer.
And when Manly’s mediocre defence allowed three offloads, the bouncing ball out the back created space for Sandon Smith to scoot past Cherry-Evans and the two elder Trbojevic brothers for the first try of his NRL career and more importantly a 20-point gap.
A DCE chip kick for Haumole Olakau’atu cut the gap to 16 at break but Garrick’s dubious defence was again exposed soon after the restart by Tedesco curling around the back with Tupou touching down this time around.
Tedesco had spiders on him as he cut through the defence as the hosts scooted out to a 34-4 score line before a clever Tommy Talau stemmed the one-way flow of points but even with 20 minutes left, it was too late as Ben Trbojevic and Dominic Young traded late tries down the stretch.
“I think they ran through us twice, our tackle was a bit off,” Robinson said. “And then the longer the game went, the better our line moved on their shifting.”
Cherry-Evans was targeted in the defensive line with his former Kangaroos teammate Angus Crichton turning his night into a nightmare.
Seibold switched DCE to the opposite side of the field late in the first half but the Roosters kept running at the veteran half to create breaks and also sap his energy for when he had some respite in attack.
His opposite number underlined why Robinson has been raving about him as more than a stopgap replacement for Sam Walker and their clear choice to be his halves partner when their first-choice playmaker returns next year from his ACL tear.
Smith was busy in attack, notched an opportunistic try when presented with a staggered defensive line and shared the organising duties like a veteran so that Luke Keary didn’t have to overplay his hand.
“He’s looked dangerous running the football, sharp on his feet,” said a clearly impressed Billy Slater on Nine commentary.
DCE and Garrick were exposed in defence but they weren’t the lone rangers on that front among the Manly team.
It’s hard to be too critical given the mayhem in the opening exchanges which meant the players were out of gas in the second half.
But when the match was on the line in the first half, Manly’s defence was timid.
And that’s the last thing you want to be in the finals.
The Sandon Smith try was a blatant example of the Sea Eagles failing to lock up the pill.
They paid the price on that occasion and at times their defensive line looked like they were employing different strategies to each other as some players rushed in while others hung back.
Manly have made some defect strides forward in 2024 but they will remain fringe contenders at best unless they can find a couple more hard-working tackle machines to strengthen their soft underbelly.