Roosters signing Brandon Smith has admitted he was a “little shaky” in his tricolours debut, and rated their performance against Melbourne “pretty poor”.
Playing in dummy-half, Smith played about 20 minutes of the Roosters’ 32-24 win over the Storm in Geelong, and set up Victor Radley for his second-half try.
Speaking after the game, Smith said facing his old teammates for the first time was “a bit weird”.
FOLLOW LIVE: NRL Trials 2023 week one Sunday
READ MORE: Volkanovski loses title fight in Perth thriller
READ MORE: Desperate Aussies rush unknown spinner to India
“It was kind of hard seeing all the medical staff, and all the physios on the sidelines – that was tough,” he told Fox Sports.
“It was weird hearing all the names they were calling out for all the plays, I knew exactly what they were doing which started confusing me … I started to forget what the Roosters plays were.”
He said while he is starting to adapt, there is still plenty of room for improvement following his first hit out.
He said the Roosters weren’t taking the pre-season challenge any more seriously than they might have in years past, despite the carrot of $100,000 prizemoney.
“I don’t think the pre-season comp really matters – I don’t even know how the points system works,” he said.
Storm go length of the field
“For Robbo (Roosters coach Trent Robinson) it’s just I guess taking what we’ve learned in pre-season, going out there and trying to execute so we can take it into the real season where all the glitz and glamour is made.
“Hopefully we can do that in the next game – I think we were pretty poor tonight.
“We played against all the young fellas in the Melbourne side and they really gave it to us, so we’ve got a lot of room for improvement.”
Smith said one of the key differences between Robinson and Storm coach Craig Bellamy pre-seasons was the massive amount of distance running in Bondi.
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!
The 2022 RLPA Dream Team – as voted by every contracted NRL player
For all the latest Sports News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
