Trent Robinson is sitting in his office in the Sydney Roosters’ newly-opened $10 million Nick Politis Centre of Excellence speaking candidly about the lessons one of the NRL’s most successful clubs of the past decade need to take out of last year.
A couple of doors down in a team meeting room there is a mini-replica of an NRL field painted on the floor accompanied by several boxes of numbered blocks tucked under a nearby table.
A decent size, it comes complete with in-goal areas and all the correct line markings where the Roosters can review games, workshop how they want to play and then get the blocks out to start the equivalent of NRL chess.
It’s the kind of attention to detail that underlines why Robinson has been such a driving force behind the Roosters becoming one of rugby league’s benchmark clubs.
Raise the subject of the Tricolours’ explosive exit in week one of the finals last September against arch-rivals South Sydney and Robinson doesn’t try to duck and dive around the result.
“We missed our mark in the game that we got knocked out in,” Robinson told Fox Sports Australia.
“If you dial it up too much you can sometimes get it wrong as well and we dialled it past where we needed to but we’ll fix that.
“To be honest that game was a mirror of where you’re at.
“Whatever’s happened. We didn’t get what we wanted out of last season.
“We would have liked to have won the comp and we didn’t.
“We got knocked out but we also got lessons that we needed in that last game so I look at it as a gift.
“Get your lessons, wake up, you need to fix some things and get better for next year.
I don’t look at it as a negative anymore.
“It was wild and it wasn’t what we wanted it to be at the time but it highlighted some things that we needed to fix if we want to get back to being at our best.
“Know where home is and know what our basis of our play is but then keep trying to get better. We’re not done yet.”
There’s an argument Roosters kingpin Politis signing Robinson as a rookie NRL coach 11 seasons ago was equally as important as any of the powerful Chooks chairman’s biggest negotiating coups of the past 50 years.
From landing the package deal of Phil Gould and Brad Fittler in 1994 to the signatures of Sonny Bill Williams, James Tedesco, Cooper Cronk and Brandon Smith more recently, the skill-set Robinson has evolved and the success he’s created to win three premierships speaks for itself.
At 45, he’s already become the longest-serving coach at a foundation club steeped in history and in the process gone past icons of the game like Jack Gibson, Arthur Beetson, Arthur “Pony” Halloway and Gould in terms of games coached at the Tricolours.
Think about it. The Roosters have been around since 1908 yet until Robinson arrived at the Tricolours no coach had ever made it past 157 games.
Robinson currently sits on 262 NRL games with a win percentage of 64.9 and will undoubtedly become the first coach in the history of the Eastern Suburbs club to make it to 300.
A voracious reader and deep thinker, the Roosters coach is more than comfortable doing things differently in the pursuit of excellence.
Like all the good NRL coaches, he understands as the head of the football department you also need to take part in the pre-season army camps or the 40-hour fasts.
It shows the playing group you’re all in it together, prepared to make the same sacrifices and mentally tough.
Yet when you strip it all back at the Roosters, he also understands the most important detail - winning.
“I’ve got a vision for where we want to go. That involves winning more and having a hand in creating great people in a great club,” Robinson said.
“If we want to be who we want to be that’s what we’ve got to do. Win more.
“And keep setting a platform where people can be at their best and have a great club.”
Roosters supremo Politis has gone on record numerous times stipulating how he wants Robinson to become the Tricolours equivalent to Sir Alex Ferguson at English Premier League giants Manchester United.
Robinson is reluctant to talk specifics about how long he’ll be at the Roosters but given he signed a five-year extension until the end of 2028 in March last year it’s clear the Chooks are in extremely safe hands.
“I won’t be anywhere else in the NRL. This is my home. I’ll be here or in France one day,” Robinson said.
“That’s what it will be. That’s how my life looks and I’m not leaving here for a long time.
“But the responsibility is that we do it in the right way. We handle this club with care and with that continually trying to be a really tight-knit group.
“And we win. I don’t like to look too far ahead.
“You’ve got to take yourself out and look at the future of the club.
“But then as a coach you’ve got to get back into there’s only one year that counts and that’s this year.
“That’s your full-time focus. My part-time focus is to step out of that, look at what it’s going to look like for 2024 to 2028.
“You do that for half a day or a day but then you step back into the only thing that counts is 2023.
“The trust is there in our club that we’re building for the long-term but we know what the short term looks like.”
In football terms, Robinson often talks in press conferences about how the Roosters are “building” and “foundation games”.
The Chooks were certainly building last season when they were forced to go on a nine-match winning streak to make the finals after a poor beginning to the year saw them lose four of the opening eight games of the season.
Robinson is confident the club has made the necessary adjustments to avoid a similar start to 2023.
“We needed to improve the start of the year. We missed the kick at the start of the year and we played catch up,” the Roosters coach said.
“We played catch up quite well at the back end of the year and we started to roll into our style of play but we need to nail that from the start of the year.
“We need to be pushing our quality of game right from round one. So that’s been a bit more of a focus this season.
“We had a bit more of a rehab process in pre-season and we were trying to get players right for the long term and we missed the combinations and fitness needed for the start of the season.
“We’re not going to do that this year.”
The big change this season is the recruitment of Brandon Smith to play hooker, replacing Sam Verrills who has switched to the Gold Coast.
On an overcast morning at the Roosters training grounds at Kippax Lakes last Friday, Smith looked super fit and like a player intent on earning the respect of his new teammates.
Kiwi Test hooker Smith and the rest of the Roosters World Cup brigade returned to training on January 4.
“He’s been straight into it from the first day,” Robinson said.
“We often see the character that he is and people enjoy that part of it.
“But I’ve enjoyed the footy player. The guy that’s come in to work hard, learn his role and really add a good point of difference in that ruck for us.”
Last Friday Tedesco was on a restricted program while Jared Waerea-Hargreaves watched on from the sidelines as the Roosters worked through a variety of game simulation drills.
Left edges opposing right edges then some 13 on 13 opposed, it’s all scientifically mapped out to the millisecond through low, medium, high and high-high training blocks with a view towards being primed in September.
“Moving into the new stadium was a big step for us and then we had to stay in our area because we’ve always been on eastern suburbs land,” Robinson said.
“So it’s a big step forward for us this year because it sets up our next period of time, on Roosters territory, in the Stadium in the new centre of excellence so it’s awesome.”
So what’s the response from the Roosters playing group so far?
“It’s a funny thing. We’ve been in demountables for the past four years and probably even worse facilities before that and the expectation has always been high about what we expect from the players and staff,” Robinson said.
“The expectation doesn’t change but the care we can offer them is a lot more and so they walk in and they know they can cover off everything they need to do to perform.
I feel like they walk in and they feel like it’s home straight away.”
With the outline of Centre Point Tower lining the sky to the north of where the Roosters train, the newly-crowned Allianz Stadium situated right next door and Robinson, Jason Ryles, Matt King and Brett Morris calling the shots at training, it’s easy to see why players are drawn to wanting to be part of what the Chooks are building.
Smith will be the primary point of difference in the Roosters spine while young gun Sam Walker and three-time premiership-winner Luke Keary will steer the side as halfback and five-eighth.
“Sammy and Kez are really clear as our halves. They’ll play that traditional half and five-eighth role and being settled on that spine,” Robinson said.
“But we’ve also got some really good guys there who have been here for a while. Joey Manu, Drew Hutchison, Joe Suaali’i, all of those guys play a part of that spine role at different times and decided on how we play and especially how we attack.
“So I don’t expect it to come down to one or two players I expect it to be shared because we know our game style better than we’ve known it for the last couple of years.
“Then it’s about putting Brandon in and getting him to execute within that and then making it his own as well.”
On the night the Roosters opened the club’s new Centre of Excellence last Monday the players had recently completed a 40-hour fast as part of a new nutrition program being implemented by club champion Anthony Minichiello.
“Mini’s done a lot of research in this space and he’s one of ours so there’s a fair bit of trust there,” Robinson explained.
“There’s been a lot of building up to how he wants us to prepare and eat and recover.
“A part of that was getting the boys on a fast. It’s a good discipline for them and we were all in on it and there were some good health benefits on the back of it from Mini’s point of view.
“We’ve always done things slightly differently there in that space based on some senior players like Mini, Fitz in the past, Keegan Smith, those sorts of guys have always pushed us in those areas. And we thought a return to that was really key.”
Did Robinson also partake in the 40-hour fast?
“It was good, I needed it,” the Roosters coach laughs.
There’s no question the Roosters don’t go as far as they do last year without the influence of front row forward Waerea-Hargreaves.
JWH, now 34 and still suiting up in the toughest position on the field, single-handedly took on arch-rivals Melbourne towards the end of the season and it was a similar story in 2021 when he led an injury-ravaged Tricolours into the finals.
“I would say we don’t have long left together as a player and coach, that may look somewhat different in a year or two,” Robinson said.
“But he’s such a gift to coach. The way that he plays the game. The simplicity and the hardness that he plays it with.
“But there’s a big heart there for his teammates and you can see that when he plays.
It’s up to someone now to take that role off him from Jared and move it forward as well.
“Like Lindsay Collins. It’s time for those guys not to wait and start taking over and say I’ve got your back now Jaz you can move on in the right way at the right time.”
To finish we ask Robinson about what the key fundamentals are for success now that he’s had ten years at the top to review what works and what doesn’t work.
“The first thing is there’s a trust of the vision and direction of the club which we all have in Nick and the board,” Robinson said.
“There’s that comfort that offers you. We know that financially we’re in good hands, we know that they’re constantly thinking about how are we going to work and perform.
“So that sets a platform for us. That’s one of the main pillars. The other one is we’re here for high performance.
“We’re here to master what we do on the field. You’ve got to be working towards being your best person off the field to do that.
“We want good people in the building and we want winners.
“Now it’s time for us to deliver more after what the board has delivered for us with this Centre and the Stadium.
“It’s time for us to deliver on-field.”
