Everyone loves to hate the Roosters. But we shouldn’t. Their fans have suffered too

October 3, 2026 — 9:30am

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My favourite memory of the 2026 NRL season is the night I went to a Roosters home game in order to discover that their fans are human, too.

It’s a difficult case to make this week, when approximately 110 per cent of the rugby league world is wishing for another Newcastle miracle. The Roosters are the appropriate villains, and will embrace being cast as the black princes of this fairytale.

The evidence against the Roosters’ humanity is old and basic: too much money and influence – the same reasons Manly and the Broncos have been rugby league’s most hated clubs. Of course you hate the rich and entitled – that’s the world, and that’s rugby league.

Nick Politis’ billions have helped make the club what it is, but it’s not just the money.

There’s the shiny new home for the club supported by all those Scots College and Cranbrook boys, courtesy of the NSW taxpayer.

There is the self-arrogating of the name “Sydney”. There is the cosy relationship with Fox Sports, whereby Roosters ease from the field to the commentary booth and studio, a promise of post-career employment that falls outside that mythical guardrail, the salary cap.

There is the barely sufferable coach Trent Robinson, a well-meaning would-be deep thinker who brings to mind the poet John Tranter’s priceless line about the scuba diver who keeps adding weights to his belt but can’t help floating back to the surface.

The almost universal belief that the Roosters rort the salary cap is tempered by the possibility that they do not. Let’s just agree that they have made the cap work for them.

When the entitled get their own way by legal means, it feels even worse for those on the outside........

© The Sydney Morning Herald