Where does pressure really sit in this year’s grand final? Trent Robinson laughs and taps his temple

“It’s mostly internal. It always is,” the Roosters coach responded when asked if he’d felt that pressure since the club’s last title in 2019 and the Panthers dynasty that followed it.

Robinson laughs and taps his temple when you double-check whether “internal” means inside his own head.

That’s as opposed to internal pressure emanating from inside those red, white and blue walls adorned with the famous Roosters motto “we play for premierships”.

There should be pressure to deliver at one of the game’s genuine powerhouses, Robinson believes.

Billionaire chairman Nick Politis told this masthead in 2024 that “‘Robbo’ will be here long after I’m dead.”

Club director Mark Bouris sings a similar tune: expectations will always remain high, but no pressure has come the coach’s way from above – something not all of Robinson’s predecessors can say.

“What’s important about Robbo is he puts the pressure on himself,” Bouris says.

“He’s a high achiever, extremely intense and intelligent as well, and he likes to be a winner. It’s one of the reasons we love him, and it’s why he’s our longest-serving coach.

“We like the fact he accepts the pressure … he’s a cool cat, and he doesn’t let it overwhelm him.”

Not that the small galaxy of NRL stars at Roosters HQ are immune.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve won a grand final,” Angus Crichton says. “I had that success in my first season here, and it’s seven years later still chasing the next one. We’re still chasing that every single day, chasing that success every single game.”

For more than a decade now, Roosters players have spoken of Robinson the thinker and tinkerer. A character and a mind that has never quite fit the NRL coaching norm – he’s a fluent French speaker with a passion for NFL fantasy football (and taking cash off his players in the club’s annual in-house competition).

The insights Robinson offers into this season’s tweaks and changes – and they are only that, because the Roosters have never been too far away these past seven years – are instructive.

But only when couched in the faith his players have in him, with Robinson’s stay at the Roosters (since 2013) now trailing only Melbourne’s Craig Bellamy (2003) as the longest-serving coach at one club.

“He’s inquisitive, Robbo, no doubt about it; he always looks at an experience wondering what he can learn from it,” says Victor Radley.

“I’ll always be indebted to him because of how much he’s shaped me into who I am today. And to be honest, the only reason I’m still at the Roosters is because of Trent.

“I’m stoked we have got a good relationship. Because if we didn’t, I’d be stuck in Salford.”

Radley is referring to Politis’s well-publicised desire to sack him over the alleged drug-supply drama involving former teammate Brandon Smith last year. Robinson and general manager Mitchell Aubusson fronted the Roosters board and successfully argued for Radley to be retained on one last chance.

The ball-playing lock repaid his coach with his best performance of the season in the 36-20 preliminary final win over the Dolphins.

That seven-tries-to-four triumph was far more comfortable than a couple of late consolation tries to the home side made it seem.

But only after the Roosters won a tough, tense opening exchange that summed up the shift Robinson has seen in the NRL over the past few seasons, and to where he has subtly shifted the Tricolours’ own structures.

There are the obvious additions of an evergreen Daly Cherry-Evans to partner Sam Walker, Reece Robson to shore up their middle and Rob Toia, Salesi Foketi, Naufahu Whyte and Siua Wong emerging as some of the best young talent in the game.

Less obvious, but tucked in the coach’s back pocket since Magic Round, is faith in the Roosters’ ability to defend like demons on their goal line when it matters most – finals games.

Because between rounds 4 and 11 (when the Roosters went 6-1), they didn’t concede a point in the 10 minutes after halftime, and let in just one try in the last 10 minutes of those seven games.

“You need to have proof during the season,” Robinson said on Channel Nine’s 100% Footy, when quizzed about the Roosters defensive resolve by Phil Gould.

“We were the number one defensive team in that second block of the season … And then you need to grab it again just before the end of the year. You can’t just find it or make it up.

“In years gone past, you needed it for 24 rounds. The competition has gone to something where you don’t need it for 24 rounds. You need it for periods of the season, and then we’ve been able to grab it.”

Along with the obvious six-again influx and faster game speed, Robinson has seen the NRL become more of a genuine balance between attack and defence than a decade ago.

As a coach and a team building their game throughout a season, one will probably have to develop at the expense of the other at various times. A premiership can no longer be won solely by building an impenetrable defensive wall, like the Roosters did in 2013. Nor with all-out, all-the-time attack.

Timing. Balance. Planning, and Lady Luck will all play their part. A stirring, life-affirming win over Penrith may be followed by a crushing one-point loss to the lowly Wests Tigers. Then the Dolphins. Then you rest nine players and your arch-rivals South Sydney put 50 on you.

“Usually you hit a bit of a flat patch at the back end of the season around, and you’ve got to make sure you get out of it,” Robinson says.

“I’ve done the opposite, where you don’t and you end up falling flat in week one or two of the finals.”

And as for the pressure that draws a grin and a temple tap from it, with the Roosters now just 80 minutes away from releasing seven years of it?

Lindsay Collins – 18th man for the 2018 grand final triumph and recipient of Robinson’s premiership ring – sums it up as well as anyone.

“It’s right there on the walls when you walk in, there’s always that expectation,” the veteran prop says.

“And Robbo sets a pretty high standard and expectation of himself and you. That can mean your ego takes a hit sometimes.

“But that’s because he believes you’ve got more to give. And that’s where I think that pressure is coming from.”

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