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Ahead of the NRL grand final, a writer examines why the Sydney Roosters are rugby league's most envied club and finds humanity among their long-suffering fans.
Ahead of the NRL grand final, one writer has set out to examine why the Sydney Roosters remain the most hated and most envied club in rugby league.
Why the Roosters Are So Hated
Roughly 110 per cent of the rugby league world is wishing for another Newcastle miracle this week, the writer notes. The case against the Roosters is old and basic: too much money and too much influence. That is the same reason Manly and the Broncos have been rugby league's most hated clubs over the years. You hate the rich and entitled because that is the world, and that is rugby league.
For the Roosters, there is the shiny new home ground funded by the NSW taxpayer and supported by all those Scots College and Cranbrook boys. There is also the self-arrogating of the name Sydney. The club's cosy relationship with Fox Sports adds to the resentment. Roosters players ease from the field to the commentary booth and studio, a promise of post-career employment that falls outside the salary cap.
Newcastle's Francis Manuleleua and the Roosters' Naufahu Whyte shared a laugh during the week, but pleasantries will be set aside on Sunday night. Coach Trent Robinson is described as barely sufferable, a well-meaning would-be deep thinker. The writer compares him to the poet John Tranter's line about a scuba diver who keeps adding weights to his belt but cannot help floating back to the surface.
The almost universal belief that the Roosters rort the salary cap is tempered by the possibility that they do not. The writer suggests agreeing that the Roosters have simply made the cap work for them. When the entitled get their own way by legal means, it feels even worse for those outside the magic circle. The rules favour those clever and industrious enough to put their financial head-start to good use.
Salary Cap and Roosters History
There does not need to be any corruption, and the masthead does not suggest there is. The answer for the writer was to confront the issue directly. Many close friends support the Roosters, and the writer loves them all. A league-loving kid in the 1970s who picked a team based on exposure chose Manly, Easts, St George or Souths, who won every title between 1970 and 1979.
Today's cartel is nothing new. The writer attended a Roosters home game against Parramatta in round 19 with two of those friends. Before the game they discussed rugby league matters and were sucked into the past. The friends were nostalgic for the 1980s and 1990s, when Easts were often dismal.
Favourite players from those years included Craig Salvatori, David Trewhella, Marty Gurr and the eternal Kevin Hastings. The friends were still bruised by the mid-1990s, when they feared Easts would be lost to amalgamation. During the Super League war, the big end of town, notably Politis and Kerry Packer, stopped the club from jumping ship to the rebel league or merging. That set in train its rise to most-hated, or at least most-envied.
Roosters Fans and the Cost of Success
The glue of rugby league is not only the memory of suffering but the weekly dose. This will be forgotten if they win the grand final, but Roosters fans spent much of the season despairing over Daly Cherry-Evans and shouting at Siua Wong or Sam Walker or one of the Butcher brothers. They were gloomy about all those errors and another wasted year.
For much of the round 19 game, the writer felt like the only one thinking they did not need to worry. As Brisbane showed last year, you do not have to be brilliant all season, just for three weeks in spring with a bit of luck going your way. Conversely, as Penrith discovered, that can unravel. The Roosters ground out a scrappy win, turning on enough power for 30 minutes to dispatch the injury-depleted Eels.
They gleaned another two points that kept them in the top four. Throughout the match, the writer kept looking at one man wearing a Roosters jersey. He must have been 85, maybe 90. He had pale, almost translucent hair and cheekbones that shone through his thin skin.
He had come on his own, which was a pretty good effort in itself. Roosters regulars no doubt know the man. What kept drawing the writer to him was the complete bliss in his face. He was so glad to be alive, to be out on a Saturday night with his beloved team.
Fandom Suffering and Grand Final Pressure
He had lived through the ordinary 80s and 90s, and other awful eras too. The writer felt great solidarity with him. His face expressed the truth of rugby league: fandom is all about suffering, punctuated by the briefest flashes of ecstasy. The writer would have given him a hug except for that damned jersey.
It is unclear whether the case has been made, and if Sunday's grand final goes the way the odds predict, most fans will have switched off before full-time. For the writer, the experience was a reminder that success in rugby league is just an interruption to the permanence of suffering. Many Roosters fans, knowing they are expected to win, will feel only relief that their team has not blown its bounty of good luck yet again.
The Roosters' suffering is a first-world problem. If you want real suffering, think about supporting the Dragons or the NRL grand final, where the pressure really sits. Trent Robinson laughs and taps his temple. This exquisite pain each year lands finally on every club except the one that is not eliminated.
Even for that one, take Penrith, the joy is to be followed by future agonies. Roy Masters says the grand final will be decided by a mistake, and the key is to avoid making one. Connor Watson was ruled out of the grand final after failing a bid to overcome concussion. Inside the Knights-mania sweeping Newcastle, one headline called it seriously bonkers.
brisbanetimes 
theage:Everyone loves to hate the Roosters. But we shouldn’t. Their fans have suffered tooThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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