With the Roosters’ signing of Brandon Smith now officially considered a failure after he was released from his contract early to join Souths, the club’s approach to recruiting in recent seasons has been questioned.
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In addition to Smith, it appears $500,000-a-year winger Dom Young could also be on the move, short of 18 months into his deal with the Roosters.
The Smith and Young situations have capped what has been a pretty disappointing few years by the Roosters on the recruiting front.
NRL360 co-host Braith Anasta said he wasn’t too surprised the Smith signing didn’t work out, given the Roosters signed him to be their starting hooker.
“I was the most outspoken about the Smith signing,” he said.
“The Roosters needed a specialist nine, they got rid of their grand final winning nine and got a 13 (Smith) and tried to transform him into a nine.
“He can player nine pretty well but he’s a lock in my opinion.
“I didn’t think the experiment would work and it didn’t and I copped a bit of criticism for it.”
Smith joined the Roosters in 2023, and while there were some glimpses, Smith didn’t play up to his huge $850,000 a year deal.
When the Roosters inked a deal with Cowboys star dummy-half Reece Robson, Smith became expendable.
The polarising Smith left the Storm to join the Chooks, rejecting offers from the Cowboys and Dolphins, the latter of which he gave then-coach Wayne Bennett a verbal commitment.
For foxsports.com.au’s Paul Crawley, this recruiting failure is a big indictment on the Roosters and their “holier than thou” approach when trying to land big name free agents.
“My question goes back with Brandon, when he went to the Roosters the Storm had tabled an offer, the Gold Coast, Cowboys wanted him and the Dolphins did as well. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t a wanted man,” Crawley said.
“What got him over the line at the Roosters was the holier than thou approach that they took him out to meet the board, he had pizzas at Robbo’s. He was wined and dined and Smith came out after that and said that Robbo said he’d make him a better man.
“Where I had a problem with it was that the Roosters knew they were signing on of the game’s great rouges who was a wild child.
“Two and a half years later they’ve shown him the door because there’s a shiny new toy that’s come along in the form of Reece Robson.
“They didn’t give him (Smith) the time to come good on their side of the promise.”
Veteran journalist Andrew Webster agreed with Crawley’s stance.
“I reckon their recruitment been shocking in many respects,” he said.
“The way they flaunted his (Smith’s) signing, particularly getting one over Bennett in getting him after he’d already done the deal with Bennett at the Dolphins. I’ve talked to (Roosters chairman) Nick Politis about it. It was pretty shameless with how they celebrated.”
Young isn’t out the door by any means, but he’s clearly out of favour, having been dropped to reserve grade.
It was understood last week that Young would be making his way back to the Knights, but according to Robinson, Newcastle have backtracked on how much they want to pay for the winger.
That has stalled Young’s move to the Knights for now.
Crawley again slammed the Roosters for how the Young signing has played out.
“The Roosters didn’t give Dom Young $500k to be good guys, they did it because he was playing great football at the Knights and he was a try scoring machine,” Crawley said.
“Now he’s going to move back up thjs highway with his reputation in tatters.
“The Roosters have not made Dom Young a better footballer in their system.
“What gets me sometimes is the way that the Roosters publicly make out they can do it better than everybody else but they have just as many failures as the other clubs.”
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