- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
If you believe the spin that the Roosters put out, this is an NRL club with the highest standards that does not tolerate mediocrity.
Or if you don’t fall for Roosters rhetoric, you are entitled to question what is going on at the joint and do they seriously believe they are back on track for premiership glory.
Terrell May is the latest big name to be ushered out of the Tricolour door, signing a three-year deal with the Wests Tigers after being told he was free to leave even before his lucrative two-season extension had even kicked in.
Brandon Smith is being jettisoned and the injured hooker has also been told he can leave early if he can secure a long-term deal elsewhere.
Perhaps they would have acted the same even if he wasn’t injured but to tell a player recuperating from a major knee injury that they can walk even before they are physically able to do so is some cold-blooded roster management.
This is a club which regards itself as an ultra professional operation which is all about accountability that comes with setting standards above and beyond their rivals, the Roosters Way as they term it.
Unless they need to sign a front-rower and then Matt Lodge’s history of serious criminal charges prove no barrier to him being signed, albeit briefly in the end with his 18-game stint across the 2022 and ‘23 seasons.
Or if they have a roster spot open and need depth out wide, then Michael Jennings being found guilty of sexual assault in a civil trial is not enough of a reason to stop them welcoming him back onto the roster.
The decision to send May on his way is particularly confounding given he was reportedly on the nose at the Roosters because he admitted in a media interview late last season that playing footy wasn’t the be-all and end-all of his life.
“Sometimes I just get ‘I don’t wanna be there and don’t wanna play’. It’s a weird feeling. I don’t think many people experience it where one week they love the game and go on the TV screens and the next week they don’t want to be there at all,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald in September.
“Sometimes I just feel I could quit, like in a day. It sounds a bit weird, but I get those thoughts sometimes where I’m just like ‘Is this really for me? I’m very grateful to be where I am and play with the Roosters, but rugby league isn’t the whole of me’.”
Terrell May is tackled. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)
When asked about whether this had anything to do with the club’s decision, Roosters coach Trent Robinson responded with the failsafe option of saying they were “going in another direction”.
Curious indeed. May is coming off the best season of his career, he had already been locked in for two more seasons, he’s a Samoan international and they need front-row depth after Jared Waerea-Hargeaves’ switch to the Super League.
He was considered good enough to play all 27 Roosters matches in 2024.
May ranked fourth among all props for tackle breaks during the season, third for line breaks, 11th for running metres and fourth in total try contributions.
His tackle efficiency of 94% was first among Roosters forwards and he made more runs (332) than any of his engine-room comrades.
The Roosters don’t like external people sticking their beaks in their business but letting him fly the coop doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Reports about Smith being surplus to requirements just happen to coincide with the Roosters meeting Ben Hunt last week.
The former St George Illawarra skipper would be an excellent addition to the Roosters’ roster if they can clear salary cap space by getting another club to take Smith off their hands a year early as part of a long-term deal.
Sam Walker is carried off the ground. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Hunt could solve their halfback vacancy while Sam Walker is recuperating from his torn ACL for the first half of next season or slot in at hooper where he has excelled for Queensland and Australia for several years.
It’s not quite a transit lounge situation, an unwanted reputation that stuck with the Roosters in the 1990s, but they are in the midst of a drastic turnover in their squad this off-season.
Waerea-Hargreaves has been joined by fellow veteran Luke Keary in cashing in for a Super League superannuation top-up to finish their careers.
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Joey Manu have also given their bank balance a huge increase by switching to rugby.
Suaalii will be with the Wallabies until 2027 and perhaps longer as part of his multimillion-dollar deal but Manu could very well be back at the Chooks midway through next season after only signing a short-term contract in Japan.
The Roosters will cop more salary sombrero jibes if and when Manu announces he’s returning but it’s not their fault if there is a loophole to be exploited by a player only signing one-season deals under the knowledge that he can glitter between the Japan rugby union comp and the NRL.
English and Australian rugby league players used to do a similar double duty a generation ago when the likes of Peter Sterling, Ellery Hanley and co would pretty much play all year round as they plied their trade in each country.
The Roosters also granted Sitili Tupouniua an early release and the Bulldogs pounced with a hefty four-year deal and the only NRL level recruit they have made so far for 2025 is Chad Townsend to be a stopgap playmaker alongside Sandon Smith while Walker is out.
Ex-Wallabies winger Mark Nawaqanitawase is effectively also a new signing even though he made an early arrival late last season and made an impressive debut in the final-round win over South Sydney.
The Roosters have plummeted to the sixth line of betting with the bookmakers at a $15 price for 2025 and they are probably lucky to be that high.
They face the very real prospect of missing the finals for the first time since 2016 and only the second time since Robinson kicked off his time at the helm with a premiership three years earlier.