The Roosters, flush with success after a thumping victory where they won big and looked good doing it, are coming.
Their stars are aligning. Their path is golden. On Thursday night they’re taking on the Panthers, who are the greatest winning machine in the league which means this always feels like a big game, and they’re going to announce something to the rest of the NRL.
They’ll be steady like a train, sharp like a razor and blessed with what only truly great teams have – that ability to find wins where others cannot, because while some sides take what they are given the Roosters take what they want.
The Tricolours are back, which means its over for just about everyone else … only it isn’t, not really, not yet.
Because since they won back-to-back premierships in 2018-19, which remains a titanic achievement regardless of whatever Penrith in the years to come, this is what we have been waiting for from the Roosters and it hasn’t happened. As quickly as new dawns have been declared, they have proven to be false.
Going into every new campaign the Roosters are among the premiership favourites but the past four seasons have been something of a wilderness. Between them, the Roosters and Panthers have won five of the past six premierships but it has been a lean few winters for the Bondi club by their standards.
They have slipped down the ladder each year, from fourth to fifth to sixth to seventh. Four straight finals appearances might sound good, but only if you’ve forgotten what great was.
There have been good wins, certainly, like their 48-6 belting of South Sydney last week where they looked imposing and dominant in all the right ways, but none of it ever seemed to truly last.
They watched the Panthers race by them and couldn’t do anything about it. The first game of Penrith’s 2020 season, the year where they started to become the greatest team of all, was against the Roosters.
The Panthers won that night in a 20-14 upset and since then they’ve won another seven in a row, including two wins by a combined total of 78-10 last year.
A win on Thursday night won’t erase that, especially given Penrith will be without Nathan Cleary and James Fisher-Harris which means, for the first time since that 2020 season opener, the Roosters are favourites to knock Penrith over.
It’s easy to see why – at the risk of being duped yet again, the Roosters look good. Sustainably good. Maybe good enough to hang with the likes of Penrith and Brisbane at their best, maybe good enough that the NRL premiership is no longer a game for two players.
