Sydney Roosters Head Coach Trent Robinson says his team are excited to play their style of footy when they face the second-placed Brisbane Broncos at The Gabba tomorrow night.
The Roosters’ mentor also gave an update on the returning Victor Radley - who was named in the side after recovering from hamstring tightness – and Sam Walker, who saw a specialist in Townsville this week.
Robinson: 'We're Looking Forward to Going After It'
Heading into one of the most highly anticipated matches of the season, Robinson believes it’s crucial that the team keeps building week to week.
“It’s really important where we are at the moment, we played some footy that we wanted to see last weekend,” Robinson said.
“It's about sort of harnessing that, working on some things that we wanted to improve, but heading in the same direction, so that's the plan tomorrow night.
The understanding of what we're capable of is right there and it's up to us to go out and produce.
Trent Robinson
“We're excited by tomorrow night, we were looking forward to going after the opposition and playing our style, but also taking on what's in front of us.
“We’re looking forward to that kind of battle.”
Collins & Keary | Deadly Choices
The three-time Premiership winner welcomes Radley back into the line-up this week, but says he still has a few more tests to pass before taking the field on Thursday night.
“He trained well yesterday, getting going, so today's the real test for him to cross that line to play. He's an important in for us, if he gets across the line, if not it'll be the same team as last week,” he explained.
“His ability to link all our forwards together has always been important, for many years.
“The Butchers had a really good game last weekend, and we want to continue their sort of progression in that in that role, so yeah, it's important to get that back.
“Browny has been very good for us as well, so it's time for us to have belief in where we're headed and what we're doing and put the foot down tomorrow night.”
With Origin representative fullbacks James Tedesco and Reece Walsh meeting at Club level for the first time in 2023, Robinson says that his Skipper is raring to go following a stand-out performance in Round 21.
“I think that position especially is why a lot of people watch the game, they get excited,” he said.
There's a freedom that comes with the fullback role and that’s no different in those two players, they get freedom to go and play on both sides of the ball and through the ruck and they get freedom to chance their hand at different times. I know our guys are looking forward to that.
Trent Robinson On the match-up between James Tedesco and Reece Walsh
With a number of star forwards set to trade blows in the middle, Robinson is confident that Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Lindsay Collins can lead from the front in the early exchanges.
“I think that's an important part of establishing the upfront battle right from the beginning, so that’ll be no different tomorrow night, and then we're looking forward to the second half as well, we're looking forward to going after them there,” he said.
“[We understand] the sort of enormity of the chance that it is right in front of us, to lay out our credentials down there tomorrow night, there's an excitement, there's a belief in what we're going to do and we're looking forward to the full 80 minutes.”
Robinson had some positive news to share about Walker, who travelled to Townsville during the week to see a specialist about the rehabilitation of his ACL sprain.
“Well the facts are that he didn't go up there to sign a contract with someone else,” Robinson joked.
“He went up to see a specialist in Townsville on his knee and he's getting pretty close, he's gone back to Sydney to train the rest of this week. He’ll have one final set of tests on Monday and then we're looking forward to getting back into some footy.
“Obviously with the stop-start nature of those tests, you don't get continued progression on your training and you need progression, so it's been sort of rocky the last couple of weeks.
“To get some progression there would be good over the next couple of weeks and back into playing.
“He's an agile guy and he's a speed guy and he's a 360-degree guy, so we want to make sure that it’s in the right place.
“A big one for us is to have him available there and that hasn't been the case for three months, that's just been where it's at, so it's given the opportunity for Sandon to come in and and I feel like he's progressed and performed well.”
