Superintendent Rooster Trent Robinson has harnessed one of league’s great uncontrollables and guaranteed his side a more favourable deal in next weekend’s penalty count.
After winning only six infraction contests in his dux year of 2013 and being mercilessly lashed again so far this season, Robinson broke the emergency glass to stop the rot in the wake of Friday night’s bruising 8-0 loss to Manly at Allianz Stadium.
An 11-2 penalty-count blowout in favour of the visitors in which numerous whistles were harmed and vitriol stocks exhausted, the French-speaking honcho decided enough was enough. It was high time the verbal cannons were deployed.
Spewing deluxe, Robinson took the opportunity while the windows in the coach’s box were fogged-up to set his eyebrows downwards and inwards and then whack on his best pair of sharply-creased cranky pants. What resulted was a shattering of his nice-guy persona. The post-match presser saw him morph from his usual Jekyll into the never before seen Hyde – known in league parlance as transforming ‘from Cleary to Toovey.’
While still keeping things relatively Bennett-cool, he delivered a scathing and sustained critique of the referee’s shortcomings as men worthy of wearing the pink.
It was the first time we have seen the mild-mannered coach blow his stack post-match, and his maiden venture into industrial leaf-blower territory is certain to have repercussions for the Bulldogs in Round 5. By re-routing from smiletown to spewin.com.au for the first time in his NRL career, footy ears from top-to-bottom of the organisation pricked up in unison.
In a land where squaring the ledger is as common as taped-up noggins and lax scrums, the ‘fair go’ ruling is sure to be enacted for the Roosters next week – not only to appease their big cheese, but also maintain the fair and equitable landscape of our scrutinised footy democracy.
Being an ice-calm low-talker who doesn’t exhaust the dummy-spit on a weekly basis, you can bet he will be granted ledger-squaring love from the men in the middle when they face-off with Des Hasler’s men next Friday night.
Robinson’s six-minute tirade on the referees – most notably Ben Cummins – was as brilliant as it was elegantly simplistic.
He kicked off proceedings with a final reminder of why he’s regarded as a top stick in the industry, praising the video ref for disallowing a Daniel Tupou try which would’ve brought his team back into contention in a watertight contest.
When he was tossed up a juicy half-volley question about the rest of the refereeing performance, he duly smacked the boobs off.
The newly cropped boss proceeded to hog the mic with a prolonged series of examples of putrid decisions. He capped it off with two pieces of critical job advice for the adjudicators that were so elementary they were almost insulting.
Firstly, he informed the bumbling whistle sect that as much as they would like to be, unfortunately they’re not coaches.
He then broke it down further with a reminder that when players breach, they’re obligated under the laws of rugby league to punish them and not just casually inform them of their errors in passing via casual chat at the scrumbase.
And with those friendly fundamental refreshers from a shirty Roosters coach, now sporting a protruding anger vein on his forehead, the process of the balancing of the disciplinary scales began. As unfathomable as it sounds, that’s just the way league works in these parts. Don’t approach your media stints like Ricky Stuart and you should eventually cop a hug.
Once the dust settles on a fiery postscript and Robinson’s dog comes out of hiding from under his staircase, what will be left is a Friday night match against the Bulldogs where all eyes will be on the referee’s lips and the pea-carrying plastic in between.
Des Hasler, this is your cue. Fill your leaf blower with two-stroke now.
