LATTE sippers? Nope, wrong rugby league cliché.
Roosters HQ has had a revamp and is now the game’s unofficial Last Chance Saloon.
The club is backing its recent track record to reform a number of the game’s wayward individuals as well as their own on field fortunes.
The recent signings of Paul Carter, Zane Tetavano and Liam Knight raised the eyebrows of some Roosters fans and the blood pressure of others.
Following a disastrous 2016 campaign and Mitchell Pearce’s recent admission that the club’s previous success had papered over a much vaunted culture with “cracks underneath, with lifestyles that the boys were living”, the reaction is understandable.
Both Carter and Tetavano have signed one-year deals and have recently started training at their third, and by common consensus, final NRL clubs.
Knight meanwhile is locked in until 2019 having put forward a strong case in a crack field for rugby league’s own version of the Darwin Awards in March, when the ex-Manly prop famously sprayed Aeroguard into his mouth after being arrested for drink driving.
As well as Pearce and club skipper Jake Friend, Kangaroos flyer Blake Ferguson is more familiar than most with the Roosters success in restoring individuals first as people, then as players.
Cut loose by the Raiders in 2013 and kicked out of NSW Origin camp for indecent assault, Ferguson has rebuilt his life and career with the help of a young family and Roosters heavy hitters Nick Politis and Trent Robinson.
Speaking from Australian camp having since regained the Blues jumper he thought he’d lost forever, then capping it with a green and gold number, Ferguson says there’s no better place than the Roosters for Carter, Tetavano and Knight to start again.
“They’re all good quality players, it’s just a matter of getting them into a culture and building them up so we can play some good footy,” Ferguson says.
“Nick and Robbo — they have your best interests at heart. Those guys will know this is probably their last chance or whatever, and at the end of the day you’ve got to make the sacrifices to get there.
“I’ll help them any way I can too, 100 per cent.”
Robinson was widely praised for the stark about face in the Roosters form on and off the field as he took them to the 2013 premiership.
Even with their slide down the ladder to 15th this year, the Chooks still implemented a team wide booze ban over the last six weeks of the season when they were long out of finals contention.
Ferguson explains that one simply.
“That’s what we do at the club every year anyway, regardless of whether we’re coming 15th or coming first. That’s our culture anyway.
“That said we’ll obviously sit down in the off-season and chat about our goals for next year.
“It wasn’t a successful year for us as a club and no one’s happy about that.”
But with the departure of senior figures and trendsetters Sonny Bill Williams, Anthony Minichiello and James Maloney, the cracks Pearce speaks of started to show a few years on from that 2013 triumph.
Pearce’s own infamous Australia Day saga, the domestic violence charges Shaun Kenny-Dowall was eventually cleared of and unrest around the attitude of young Jackson Hastings all took their toll.
The additions of Carter, who was sacked previously by the Titans and Rabbitohs over a string of alcohol fulled incidents including drink driving offences, and Tetavano, jailed for nine months — but with no time served on appeal — for bashing his girlfriend while at Newcastle, don’t exactly ease concerns.
Tetavano especially carries serious baggage after his lawyer declared he had “no desire to return to the toxic environment that the NRL invites” when he was found guilty of assault for a series of disturbing attacks on his ex-partner.
He has since been cleared by the NRL Integrity unit after two years out of the game and a number of community service and eduction programs, before returning with the Roosters feeder club Wyong this season.
Asked how Carter and Tetavano will fare at their new glamour club, both Ferguson and fellow senior Rooster and Kangaroos rep Boyd Cordner point to Friend — the wild child turned sandwich hand turned club captain and Australian debutant.
They say their rough and tumble rake provides the footsteps for them to follow in, the stern leadership to keep them in line, and about as much noise as a church mouse playing charades.
Friend in particular takes a dim view of individuals jeopardising the hard work of their teammates, having done so himself when he was sacked what feels like a lifetime ago over his behaviour on the booze.
His commitment to the red, white and blue has been without reproach since.
He played through busted ribs in 2014 that filled his lungs with blood and for one frightening night, put his life on the line.
Before his 150th game for the Roosters, the man of so few words was moved to tears, such was its significance to him.
“Friendy’s a very passionate and emotional leader, and there’s no question what this (Kangaroos) start or the Roosters mean to him,” Cordner tells foxsports.com.au.
“You know what you’re going to get with him, it’s what makes him a great leader.
“That (150th match) was a big game for him, and when he was interviewed by the players he got a bit emotional talking about where he’s come from, those struggles that he’s had and what he’s had to overcome.
“It’s good to see that, you get an appreciation of exactly what it means to them, and you can’t help but get on board with it.
“It has been a tough year and Friendy took it probably tougher than most but he also handled it pretty well too, and made the standards clear.
“There’s obviously been some off-field dramas and on-field as well the performance wasn’t there but he’s come through it better than anyone and it just shows the quality of person he is.”
If the likes of Carter, Tetavano and Knight can stay on the straight and narrow, they will add undoubted punch to a Roosters pack that still boasts an rep contingent most clubs would kill for.
Carter’s mongrel and Knight’s untapped potential in particular make them attractive options to Robinson.
Raiders offer Taylor lifeline
0:29Another crack at the NRL is the obvious carrot for the new trio, and it comes with being coached by one of the best and most attentive in the business at that.
But the Chooks have also had success in the past using the stick when it comes to those with off-field distractions, and it’s understood Carter’s deal contains a strict no-alcohol edict.
Carter has been off the drink for the past three months after attending the same Thai rehab clinic that Pearce checked into earlier this year, and Cordner says it’s the kind of lifestyle change that can vindicate the Roosters’ gamble.
“Those boys were shown faith by the club and they put faith back into the club too,” Cordner says.
“Obviously they’ve been looked after by the club and I suppose it shows just how much it means to them when they can kick on and have success after those tough times.
“ ... You’ve got to know that whatever happens off the field is going to affect you on it.
“That was clear this year and we’ll be working overtime as a leadership group to get ourselves back on track.”
This writer is on Twitter: @dan_walsh64
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